Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) coach Tom Moody is still confident about his team in the IPL 2016 after suffering a big defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Saturday evening at Hyderabad. SRH lost the match against KKR by 8 wickets with 10 balls to spare while it was their second consecutive defeat in their first two matches in the IPL 2016.
After winning the toss, SRH decided to bat first. Against the KKR’s good control bowling line-up, SRH only managed to score 142 runs after losing 7 wickets in 20 overs. In reply, KKR reached in that target at 18.2 overs after losing just 2 wickets.
In their first game of this year IPL, SRH also suffered a defeat against Royal Challengers Bangalore by 45 runs at Bangalore.
Despite these scarier performances in the beginning of the tournament, SRH coach Tom Moody is confident about his team. He said, “There are a few areas we need to address. But as I said, this is two games into the tournament. We need to reflect and learn and build from areas we are falling down. But still, I am very positive. We can turn around this quickly. We have seen that in previous seasons, the Mumbai Indians last year.”
Moody admitted that early wicket loss put a big problem to the batting team to make comeback in the shorter format of cricket. The former Australian cricketer said, “As we have seen, not just this season but throughout the history of T20, if you lose three wickets in that early phase, it’s very, very difficult to come back and be competitive on a good wicket. Yes, it was a surface that was a little bit unpredictable with returning or uneven, it’s a different story. But, today was a good batting surface and we missed the opportunity.”
Moody praised the 67 runs partnership between Eoin Morgan and Naman Ojha for the 5th wicket of SRH which helped the team to put a fighting total on the board. Moody said, “Credit to Eoin Morgan and Naman Ojha, the way they fought and built a partnership which gathered a total, at least we could try and compete in the second part of the game.”
Moody also backed SRH opener Shikhar Dhawan and defended his bad form. Moody said that Dhawan was keen on winning the game for his side. Moody also hoped that Dhawan will get in form soon.
