Travis Head, who doesn’t believe in scoring runs at a strike rate below 150, managed 28 runs off 29 balls against the Mumbai Indians. MI bowlers completely shut down his hitting abilities, and the southpaw struggled to time the ball before Will Jacks ended his painful stay.
His teammates had a similar experience at the Wankhede Stadium, a venue known for high-scoring games. The pitch was slow, and the ball stopped a bit, but the visiting team was hampered by not taking singles and doubles. Harbhajan Singh and Mohammad Kaif questioned the batters’ approach.
Abhishek Sharma, who accumulated 40 runs off 28 balls, was given a lifeline and couldn’t time the deliveries. Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ishan Kishan, and Heinrich Klaasen were ordinary with the bat. SRH chased down 246 runs in the previous match against Punjab Kings, but it seemed they failed to read the pitch in Mumbai.
“SRH batters just wanted to hit four and sixes and there was no intention to rotate the strike. They need flat tracks and small boundaries to score runs. It was a normal wicket and they couldn’t even score runs on it,” Harbhajan Singh said.
Mohammad Kaif agreed with his former teammate. “You won’t get an easy pitch in every match. SRH should have scored at least 180 runs. The batters went for big shots and got out. You must be smart and assess the situation and conditions to score runs. If it was an easy pitch, the score would have been 250,” he said.
Hyderabad have lost five out of seven games in the ongoing edition.
Related