Dubai: After registering an emphatic eight-wicket win over Rajasthan Royals, SunRisers Hyderabad skipper David Warner on Thursday said that the side played a complete game against Steve Smith-led side and they excelled in all departments of the game.
SunRisers Hyderabad chased down a total of 155 with eight wickets in hand and 11 balls to spare. Manish Pandey and Vijay Shankar played unbeaten knocks of 83 and 52 respectively to take their team over the line.
Says David Warner, ‘ I think the way we started was fantastic. We were able to bring it back after the powerplay. It’s been a complete game, we have been asking for. Good to see two guys (Pandey and Shankar) getting the reward for their hard work. I was frustrated in these games when you come against world class bowlers. There’s bit of swing and there’s bit of seam and you try hard to get through it, but with someone bowling at 150ks, you can’t do much. You can take him on. We saw a lot of dew last night during training, and it came in again. Jason adds strength to our bowling, his experience, he’s an all-round package. He’s a great inclusion. It’s good to show people that we do have a middle-order. We haven’t lost early wickets before, so they haven’t got a chance. I have said in the past, we are a better defending team. You have to back yourself, no matter what. This cold weather and dew comes in.’
Steve Smith,the losing captain:, said, ‘We started well. Jofra taking two big wickets early but we couldn’t keep the foot on the pedal. Vijay played smart innings and Manish took the game on and played really nicely. I consulted a few other boys, it was talked about (giving Jofra another over up front) but opted against it and in hindsight, after what happened, probably would’ve given him one more over. It was on my mind. It (the wicket) got better as the game went on. It was slow and stopping in the first innings, it was one of those wickets which was quite hard to start on. We needed some more runs in the first innings. I can’t put my finger on anything, there are plenty of good players and good teams. We haven’t been able to pull back to back wins. We just need to keep winning and don’t know how things will work for us mathematically, we have to keep winning, that’s our job now.’