The Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have lost their opening two games of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 season very badly, first to the Rajasthan Royals (RR), and then to the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). Former West Indies captain Brian Lara spoke out about his team's recent struggles during the post-match press conference highlighting that the team's batting is an area that needs immediate improvement.
"I think (against LSG) we didn't play on a pitch that was conducive to proper stroke play. Not using that as an excuse but I think we definitely have to improve our batting," Lara said.
The Sunrisers have been losing wickets at important moments in IPL 2023, with Lara pointing out that in the first game against Royals, the team lost two wickets in the first over, and in the second match against the Super Giants, they lost three wickets with seven balls, completely turning the game against them.
"We definitely have to look at our batting and come up with a solution for it. The period of time that we lost Anmolpreet, captain Aiden Markram and Harry Brook. It sort of killed us at that point," Lara added about his team.
When questioned about the decision to bat first against LSG, Lara explained that the team wanted to take advantage of the better part of the pitch and put a competitive total on the board."I think the pitch was obviously gonna be a turner, we felt if we got the better part of the pitch it would be rewarding for us," Lara said.
"We felt that there wasn't much dew on the ground so it was nothing to worry about. I think a total of 150-160 would have been a different story. We lost three wickets in seven balls and that sort of stopped our progress," he added.
The 2016 IPL champions suffered a debilitating 72-run loss to kick off their season on a poor note, before being dominated with both the bat and the ball in their five-wicket loss to LSG. They now face an in-form Punjab Kings (PBKS) in their next match on Sunday's second fixture, before travelling to Kolkata to meet the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Friday, April 14.
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