SRH vs RCB: Daniel Vettori hopes someone in SRH can play anchor role when chasing

Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Daniel Vettori said the team’s openers had an off day and the middle order were unable to stabilise as they went down to Royal Challengers Bengaluru by 35 runs in their Indian Premier League match in Hyderabad on Thursday.

Batting first, RCB put on 206/7 in their 20 overs and given the form SRH were in, they were expected to overhaul the target in quick time. However, losing both openers, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, early jolted the SRH chase and losing two more wickets in the powerplay pushed SRH to a wall. They were unable to bounce back and could only manage 171/8 in 20 overs.

Vettori said although RCB put on a good score, the team was confident of pulling it off at the inning break. "Obviously, we were confident because of the scores we were able to put up. We thought that 206 was a good score, there was a real confidence in the group because of past performances,” he said after the match.

The former New Zealand spinner said the openers failed to get going and cut them slack too, saying that it wasn’t possible for anyone to play at a consistent level all throughout the league. “We also know that it’s (the high scores) been set up by the openers and they had an off day and that’s cricket and you have off days. We don’t expect them to perform 14 games and unfortunately we didn’t get the support in the middle stages. It is a tough loss but we understand that every team in the IPL can beat every team, there are no easy games at all,” he opined.

When asked about the major takeaway from the loss, the SRH coach said they’ll look into someone who could play an anchor role, especially when chasing stiff targets. “The guys who came off said that it was a surface that you could score on. Anchor roles when you are chasing 207 is hard to do. Obviously, (there is a) need to be aggressive, 10 (runs) an over means you need two boundaries so for someone to settle in and play an anchor role is a little bit tricky but it’s certainly something we will look at,” Vettori said.

SRH play the Chennai Super Kings in their next match at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, and Vettori said the team needs to get back to the drawing board to understand how the wicket would play and how to go about if the team is chasing, given how successful the franchise has been when they bat first. “We have been successful setting totals and now we have to look at our way of chasing. We come up against a really good team in Chennai so I suppose for us is removing ourselves from this game and understanding that the Chepauk wicket could be different and we may have to go about it in a different manner. I still think on this ground, on these surfaces, we have to take the game on,” he concluded.