Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) head coach Brian Lara is not happy with his team's batters after they suffered their sixth defeat in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 season. He is of the opinion that the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) did not beat them but instead, they lost the game.
SRH were given a 172-run target set by KKR and were on course for a win but the bowling of Varun Chakaravarthy in the death overs successfully turned the tide as the Hyderabad-based franchise lost the match by five runs, being they restricted to 166 for eight on Thursday night.
"We keep losing couple of wickets in powerplay and that always sets you back a bit. We again ask (Heinrich) Klassen, who has been batting tremendous for us, to do all the hardwork. He is coming in at No.6, we have got five quality players before him. It's always been a task for him. The batters obviously will know the responsibility of winning such a game on a good batting track but we are unable to do it," Lara said in the post-match press conference.
"We have to lay a bit more importance on partnerships and understanding a bit of match awareness. It's all great to be aggressive but you have to got to use a little bit of upstairs to get the job done," he added.
Lara also heaped praise on the KKR spin duo of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakaravarthy. "They are quality spinners. We have seen that as a trend that as the tournament goes on spinners are coming into play. The likes of Narine, Chakravarthy, they are all world-class spinners.
"We did put on a very good partnership (Aiden Markram and Klassen). We got ourselves right back in the game with a couple of big overs. Then again we lost a couple of wickets at very crucial stage of the match. I would say that we had a game to win and we have to hold our hands up and say they didn't beat us we lost the game. The game was in our hands and we lost the game," the West Indian great said.
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(With PTI Inputs)
