Mumbai, Apr 19: Urging his batters to suitably tweak their approach on “difficult” surfaces, Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Daniel Vettori said they cannot expect belters at every venue and need to up their game after being outgunned by a wily Mumbai Indians in their IPL clash here.Mumbai Indians produced a perfect show on a tricky pitch here at the Wankhede Stadium which had assistance for spin and pace for the seamers, especially with the slow and short balls to win the contest by four wickets on Thursday.
SRH could only post 162 for five after struggling to find their flow with the bat. MI pacers and right-arm off-spinner Will Jacks (2/14) set up the win.
“I feel like no one really has control over their surface, so there’s a little bit of luck involved in terms of coming up against wickets that don’t suit us,” Vettori told the media after SRH failed to win another away game in this IPL.
SRH features big-hitters like Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head Heinrich Klaasen, Ishan Kishan and Nitish Reddy. Barring Abhishek (40 off 28 balls), and Klaasen (37 off 28 balls), the other batters could not make a noteworthy contribution.
“There has to be more to it from our side that we have to adapt. We know that conditions like this exist in Chennai, sometimes (in) Ahmedabad. We’re not expecting to go over around the country and come up on belters, so the ball’s in our court to realise that,” the former New Zealand spinner said.
Vettori said it was MI bowlers who made the job extremely tough for SRH batters in the first half of the game, especially in the middle overs.
“It was just incredibly tough through those middle stages,” he said.
“It was a difficult surface. Mumbai read the conditions exceptionally well…they really relied on that slow ball, but it was mainly effective because of their execution and there’s some supreme exponents of it in (Jasprit) Bumrah and Trent Boult and even Hardik Pandya.”
“The way they bowled, particularly through those middle stages, really stifled us. We were 66 for three through those 10 overs, and in these sort of conditions you probably need more than that,” he added.
Jacks, who also scored 36 after an impactful bowling show, acknowledged the pitch was tricky but his team’s plans were clear.
“It was not what we’ve seen in the past here, but it was definitely still a good wicket. We felt when there was pace on the ball, we thought we could play our shots freely as long as we weren’t trying to over-hit the ball,” he said.
“I knew there was going to be a bit of spin assistance so as long as I wasn’t floating the ball up there and bowling aggressively and bowling hard, using the wicket, that’s what I was trying to do.”
Jacks also revealed that MI spinner Karn Sharma suffered an injury to his finger webbing in the second half of the game.
“He has got a slight finger-webbing issue. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen him but hopefully it’s not too bad and he can bounce back quickly,” Jacks said.
Jacks said the pitch did not change much from first to the second innings with SRH struggling to put bat on the ball but MI were not facing any such challenges given the nature of the surface.