Sunrisers Hyderabad endured a heavy defeat in their IPL 2023 opener in front of their home fans with last year’s runners-up Rajasthan Royals producing a clinical show across departments. Thanks to impressive half-centuries from Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler and Yashasvi Jaiswal, RR racked up 203/5 after being put in to bat first by SRH stand-in captain Bhuvneshwar Kumar on Sunday.
Considering the depth they have in their batting for this season, the target, on paper, was very much within their reach. Instead Trent Boult gave them two body blows in the very first over, a double-wicket maiden at that, from which SRH struggled to recover and managed just 131/8 with RR winning by 72 runs.
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It was a spectacular collapse from SRH as just one of their batter crossed the 30-run mark with tail-ender Umran Malik’s unbeaten 19 being their third highest individual score in a sorry show.
Stand-in captain Bhuvneshwar says SRH will have to work towards improving their batting and look ahead. “We have to just work at it and move forward," he said during the post-match presentation.
Bhuvneshwar is pinning hopes on SRH’s South African stars including first-choice captain Aiden Markram, wicketkeeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen and lanky pacer Marco Jansen with the trio currently busy on national duty.
“It’s the first match of the season and there is a lot to improve. South Africans are coming back, our captain is coming back and we will be a much better batting unit," Bhuvneshwar said.
The 33-year-old though hinted SRH didn’t execute their plans in Sunday’s defeat and isn’t worried about the nature of Hyderabad pitch either.
“We need to execute our plans and hopefully we will get better. It was a pretty good track and like what we get in Hyderabad. We can prepare whatever we want (pitch) but we are not too worried about that," Bhuvneshwar said.
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