Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) was trumped by Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the 23rd Match of IPL 2021 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Wednesday.
SRH skipper David Warner won the toss and opted to bat on a good batting surface. However, the left-handed opener struggled to dominate CSK’s bowling attack. Warner couldn’t find gaps, and his side managed to score only 39 runs, laced with only four boundaries in the entire powerplay.
Even after the powerplay, Warner made 38 runs off 32 balls, hurting SRH’s chances of putting up a mammoth total on the board. His overall strike rate was around 100, which was very uncharacteristic of his batting style. He departed off 57 runs after facing 55 deliveries.
In the press conference post the match, SRH’s coach Trevor Bayliss admitted that the captain’s slow knock was one of the chief reasons for their team losing the match. Though he applauded the other batters who helped SRH reach a respectable 171/3 despite Warner’s turtle-paced innings, the 58-year-old agreed that the total wasn’t enough to contain CSK.
“David Warner will be the first to admit that he struggled here. He hit a lot of balls to the fielder today. With a player like David, it doesn’t happen a lot. Tonight it did, and it hurt a bit. The other guys batted really well and the team effort got us to 171, which wasn’t really enough on this surface. Also, CSK bowled and batted quite well,” Bayliss said.
Showing maturity, Warner took full responsibility for the team’s dismal performance.
“I take full responsibility for the way I batted, it was really slow, I found a lot of fielders and I got frustrated,” said Warner.
With this defeat, SRH are at the bottom of the points table, having won just one out of 6 games. The ‘Orange Army’ will have to win at least six out of the remaining eight league matches to stay in contention for the play-offs.
