Sunrisers Hyderabad's seasoned seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar on Sunday praised his younger pace colleague Umran Malik, saying watching him bowl fast "is a joy".
Bhuvneshwar (3/22) and Umran (4/28) combined to bundle out Punjab Kings for 151 in their IPL game here, paving the way for their team's seven-wicket victory. Asked about Umran, India seamer Bhuvneshwar said in a lighter vein, "More than (Umran) helping me, it means I am a target as batters think I'm slower.
"But watching him bowl fast and get wickets is a joy. Hope the others going after me leads to wickets and not boundaries (smiles)." Bhuvneshwar gave SRH a perfect start as he dismissed seasoned opener Shikhar Dhawan in the third over.
"There was no swing so I looked to hit back of a length. That was my plan against Shikhar as I knew he would step out and look for the boundary. I looked to hit a hard length and find the top edge and luckily that's what happened, I looked to play with my field as well.
"I try to bowl to the batter's weakness or to the ground's dimensions. The wicket and my skills are what I look at," Bhuvneshwar said.
In reply to Punjab Kings' 151, Sunrisers Hyderabad did not have a perfect start and lost skipper Kane Williamson (3) early in the fourth over with Kagiso Rabada drawing the first blood.
Opener Abhishek Sharma (31 off 25 balls; 3x4, 1x6) and in-form Rahul Tripathi (34 from 22b; 4x4, 1x6) failed to convert their starts but the modest total meant that SRH did not have to worry much in the end.
Windies wicketkeeper-batter Nicholas Pooran (41 not out from 27b; 4X4, 1x6) and Aiden Markram (35 not out from 30b; 1x4, 1x6) then completed the formalities with an unbroken 75-run partnership from 50 balls.
Playing without their regular skipper Mayank Agarwal, who suffered a toe-injury during training, PBKS were also let down with their sloppy fielding as they missed a runout and conceded easy runs defending a small total.
Markram finished off the chase in the penultimate over hitting Vaibhav Arora for consecutive boundaries and six to seal the issue with seven balls to spare.
The win took SRH to eight points, moving up from the middle-table rush to climb to fourth spot, while PBKS remained on seventh with six points from as many matches.
Leading the team in the absence of regular skipper Mayank Agarwal, who missed the game due to a toe injury, Dhawan said losing early wickets hurt them.
"Mayank is better and he should be ready to be back. We were 30-40 runs short and lost too many early wickets which put us behind the game. The early wickets meant we had to hold wickets and that's where we had to mould our game," Dhawan said.
"There was a middle order recovery but the early wickets cost us. The wicket had extra-bounce to which we were late to adjust. The discussion with the batting will be to save wickets till the 13th-14th over, the bowlers are doing well.
"We need to put up complete performances and hopefully a 3-4 game turnaround which can change a season will come in," Dhawan further added.
