Natarajan’s presence would not have affected the result – Sunrisers’ Head Coach

After another loss,their seventh out of eight matches, Sunrisers now find themselves on the brink of elimination. They are also without T Natarajan for now, who tested positive for Covid-19 before the game. On Wednesday, though, it was their batters who let them down.

What went wrong for Sunrisers

Sunrisers’ didn’t start the match well, didn’t register a decent partnership, and also never got any momentum, there were some good scores in the back-end, but pretty much 25-30 runs short. They did bowl well, in fact, they have defended modest scores in the past, but it wasn’t to be in this match which was a bit of a shame. It’s been a difficult campaign so far for SRH, but they need to enjoy the games and don’t put themselves under pressure.

Credit also goes to the Delhi Capitals, they were too good, especially the overseas bowlers, Anrich Nortje and Kagiso Rabada. They were excellent, they are both quality internationals, two of the best fast bowlers going around at the moment and they put Sunrisers under pressure. They got them into hard positions, perhaps if they hadn’t lost early wickets, they might have done differently, but Delhi were outstanding and played some smart cricket. SRH must concentrate on the way they play and try to improve.

SRH Head Coach talks about Natarajan’s absence

“I don’t think it [Natarajan’s presence] would have affected the result of the match,” Trevor Bayliss, the Sunrisers’ coach, said after the game. “They [Capitals] played way too well for us tonight. Look, it was a little bit of an upset as Natarajan was going to play. But these guys are professional players, and every now and then, there’s an injury just before playing, and you have to make a late replacement. So I am sure all of the players, in a way, are used to that.”

Natarajan’s absence meant Sunrisers’ Indian pace attack comprised of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma and Khaleel Ahmed. Interestingly, it was Khaleel, and not Sandeep, who shared the new ball with Bhuvneshwar. Sandeep was introduced into the attack quite late,in the eighth over. Bayliss explained the logic behind the move.

“In our practice matches, Khaleel was one of our best bowlers; he was getting the ball to move around. He’s a little bit taller [than Sandeep] and we felt the ball was sort of sticking in the wicket for tall bowlers. And he basically bowled well. It was one of those things, trying to fit three new-ball bowlers into two [slots] and today we went with Khaleel, which meant Sandy had to play a little bit different role.”