Mumbai : Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Punjab Kings by seven wickets in the Indian Premier League here on Sunday. Punjab were 151 all out after being put in to bat.Liam Livingstone top-scored for Punjab with 60 off 33 balls.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar (3/22) and Umran Malik (4/28) were the standout bowlers for SRH. Malik took three wickets and there was also a run out in the 20th over that ended being a maiden. In response, SRH chased down the target in 18.5 overs.
Umran Malik, Player of the Match, said, ‘ I did try a couple of slower ones today, the yorker as well, I also tried to push the length further up. I hadn’t bowled a bouncer in that over (in which he dismissed Jitesh Sharma), was trying to bowl at his body, felt he could be cramped for room on the pull and the same thing happened. I can catch myself, I’m a good fielder (laughs, on the Smith dismissal). My job is to frighten the batters with pace. I used to play tennis-ball cricket until 2018, and started practicing with the leather ball 3 years back. Abdul Samad, who used to practice with me, got me into the team as a net bowler. There are a lot of fast bowlers in our region (Jammu), plenty of talented bowlers who can bowl at 130-140 kmph.’
Kane Williamson, said, ‘ It’s been a nice period of play for us as a side. There’s been a lot of growth. It’s a long season, lot of cricket left. As a side, it’s important we continue to look to improve. Today was a really strong performance on a surface that was a little bit different. Every team is strong, but for us, it’s just focusing on our cricket.
Every team is so different from the previous year after a big auction, so it’s hard to look back too far. Certainly our attention is on the side in terms of the contributions that we want to make, the style of cricket that we want to play and so far there’s been a lot of learning. Guys are enjoying their cricket as well and adjusting nicely. We know the challenges come thick and fast and we’ll be looking forward to our next one. Both (Markram and Pooran) made outstanding contributions in the first half of this competition so far and both are clearly quality players.
We’ve chased every game so far and they’ve been there at the end and done it beautifully. It’s important for all of us we keep looking to continue to play our roles and give as much as we can to the team. Stats suggest one thing but at the end of it, it’s what’s the style of cricket that is going to give us the best chance and how we can commit to that as best as we can.
So far we’ve managed to put out some strong performances and we’ll continue to try and improve and put out better ones. Whether it’s sixes or fours or twos on different-sized grounds, whatever it is, it’s important for us that we are aware of that and we try and commit to that. A big turning point in the game (last five overs – 6/29 in the first innings), they would have liked a few more runs. But having said that, it wasn’t an easy chase on that surface. The death bowling today was outstanding. There were so many parts throughout the game that were brilliant and that was certainly a highlight for us.’
Shikhar Dhawan, said, ‘Mayank Agarwal is much better now and hopefully he will be ready for the next game. I felt we were 30-40 short, we lost too many early wickets and that hurt us. Once we lost too many wickets then we had to take the game deep and I thought Livingstone played really well. It was a nice wicket, had extra bounce.
We will be talking to our batting unit and it’s often happened that we lost too many early wickets, so we have to make sure we have wickets in hand till 13-14 overs. Our bowling is doing well and we have to do everything well together and that is the key for us to go ahead in the tournament. 3-4 games in a row totally can change a whole scenario.’