Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper David Warner revealed why all-rounder Mitchell Marsh played ahead of Kane Williamson in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020, on Monday. “Kane Williamson [was] not fit, he hurt his quad (quadriceps muscle) in training the other day,” he added.
Warner also talked about the thought process of why spin all-rounder Mohammad Nabi didn’t play. According to him, with Rashid Khan in the line-up and them chasing, the two spinners wouldn’t have worked had they stuck the other way around. “The pace-bowling all-rounder hitting the wicket as hard as he could, was probably the better option,” he added.
Warner said that it was hard to play cross bat shots through the middle period and the batsmen had to use the pace. It was difficult to work for the batsmen with the change of pace, which was working for the bowlers. He expressed his disappointment of not having two or at least one set batsman at the end as It was difficult to contain the two set batters.
After the 71-run partnership between Jonny Bairstow and Manish Pandey, Sunrisers couldn’t stitch long partnerships after that.
On crowds not being part of this IPL, the Sunrisers skipper said that as a cricketer in general he was missing the fans. “We play this game to put on a show for them and hopefully they can come and watch us,” he added.
However, the 33-year old batsman was thankful that everyone involved has got the tournament staged in such unprecedented times. “We know how tough it is to get over 3000 people into one country and have over 15 bio-secure bubbles, [which] is an amazing effort and achievement,” he added.
On the middle-order failure, Warner said that it was important to trust guys like Priyam Garg and Abhishek Sharma as they think they are good enough. But, it was disappointing to see three bizarre dismissals in the innings, something he hadn't seen before. “My message for them was just to play their natural game, which is the only way they will learn,” he signed off.
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