Mumbai: Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Tom Moody was scathing in the criticism of his batsmen, saying their chase of a modest 157 was "disastrous".
"At the end of the day, that was a very bad loss for us. We bowled and fielded well apart from the wides that we bowled. Our bowlers executed all our plans well.
We restricted Mumbai to a total we thought was 15-20 runs lighter of where they could have probably got to, around the 170-run mark. But a disastrous batting performance left us well short and embarrassed," said Moody after MI restricted his team to 137.
Moody said today's batting display showed his team?s over-dependence on openers Shikhar Dhawan and captain David Warner who fell in a short span of time after adding 45 runs and the innings went into a tail-spin.
"Certainly today's performance reflected that for sure. Leading into this tournament, leading into today's game, we had the utmost confidence in the middle order stepping up when the opportunity presented.
Today there was the perfect opportunity for our middle order to build on a very good platform both Shikhar and Dave gave us in the chase. We failed dismally," he said.
He did not agree to the suggestion that the team's batting was a bit weak overall.
"Is that your assessment? I don't think so. I think we have a pretty good side.
We went in with an extra fast bowler today therefore we had to sacrifice an overseas all-rounder or a batsman. Therefore it puts that little bit more pressure or the opportunity for an Indian player to step up and make his mark that was opportunity wasn't taken today."
"But overall, I don?t think we have got a weak batting side, we have got a strong batting side but we felt today the right decision today was to play both (Dale) Steyn and (Trent) Boult against Mumbai Indians and I think at the halfway mark you could probably say that was the right decision, restricting them to the total they made."
He described the Wankhede Stadium pitch as a placid one.
"We thought the wicket had a little bit more pace than it did. It was quite a placid wicket but still it was no excuse for not chasing down the total. It was a very good cricketing surface," he emphasized.
