Dubai:Ā Kane Williamson’s 33rd T20 half-century and an all-round masterclass from Jason Holder helped SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by six wickets in the Eliminator of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Friday.
David Warner, SRH skipper, said, ‘ As we knew we had to beat top three teams to make it into the play-offs. My nails are okay for the moment. They (Natarajan and Rashid) have been of great impact for us. We like to bowl Sandy and Holder five overs at the top. Then we try to bowl Rashid and Natarajan in the middle overs. Rashid has a lot of pressure on him to perform.
Congratulations to Natarajan. Kane is our banker. He manages to stick in there and plays the pressure innings. I am running out of superlatives for these two blokes (Rashid and KW). With the class of the batting line up (speaking about how RCB’s batsmen struggled), you knew that wicket had something in it. The boys bowled fantastically well in the middle overs. It is too early to say. We obviously have Delhi to play. We have been talking about their world class bowling side. But I am excited.’
Kane Williamson, Man of the Match, said, ‘ Look it was a tough game. It was never going to be easy against a class side like RCB. The surface was a little tricky and chasing anything on it wasn’t easy. It was a challenge for us to restrict them to that kind of a total. They also had two world class spinners. We did well to go through their spells without losing too many wickets.
Batting at 4 can vary a lot and becomes surface dependent. A few shots from Jason helped. The guys have been fighting hard. He(Holder) is cooler than me. The all-rounder role in the team has been well held by him.’