Sunrisers Hyderabad faced a seven-wicket defeat to Kolkata Knight Riders in their second match of the season.
Sunrisers Hyderabad conceded a seven-wicket loss in their second match of the season and remain the only side to yet get off the mark in the tournament. It was an all-round performance from the Knight Riders as they restricted the SRH to 142/4, before chasing the target with two overs to spare.
SRH captain David Warner insisted that the run-scoring has slowed down considerably during the middle-orders and emphasised on the need to "go harder" at the top.
"We have to try and go harder at the top. Can't help if the bowlers are bowling good lines and lengths, we need to push as hard as we can," said Warner in the post-match press conference after the match played at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
"You can see from our running between the wickets, we do that but we got to improve our boundary percentage. I saw, I think 35 dot balls, which not acceptable in T20 cricket on a wicket that was actually nice to bat on. We just mis-executed in the middle."
He also talked about his own dismissal, and took responsibility for his dismissal. "It was a very soft and poor dismissal for myself. I don’t blame anyone. I take full responsibility, for myself, for not batting out the overs and getting a soft dismissal," said Warner.
He also praised the KKR batsmen on how they orchestrated their chase. Opener Shubman Gill was key to KKR's win, as he remained not out on 70.
"For us, our strength is death bowling. I thought it was actually a difficult wicket to accelerate on. The Kolkata boys showed us that if you can keep wickets at the end, that's what wins you games. I don't regret what I did at the beginning of the game and I stick by my decision," he said.
"Pat Cummins, as he does, (bowled) Test match line and length. There was a little bit of movement here and there. All in all, it got harder through the middle. We went four or five overs for 20 and coming back with three wickets in hand at the end probably killed us a little bit there. An extra 30 or 40 runs would have been great," said Warner.
