Former India batter Mohammed Kaif has raised concerns over captain Pat Cummins’ leadership, SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) slump in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) season. Kaif questioned Cummins for not utilising spinners Zeeshan Ansari and Kamindu Mendis after their loss to the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). For the unversed, Ansari and Mendis bagged a wicket each, bowling three and one overs, respectively. Kaif also feared that SRH might not be able recover after suffering three defeats on the trot.
“The batting is not working, and so is the case with bowling. You are also losing very badly. It’s very difficult to come back from here. You will expect them to come with some plans because neither is Cummins able to bowl nor is Shami picking up wickets,” Kaif told Star Sports.
“They don’t have spinners either. (Adam) Zampa didn’t play in this match. They went with Zeeshan and he wasn’t gives all his overs. Mendis was given just one over. He picked up a wicket there but wasn’t given any more overs. Cummins’ captaincy is also looking weak to me,” he added.
Kaif suggested that SRH are succumbing to the pressure of expectations, having established a reputation of scoring 250+ scores regularly last season.
“In batting, 200 was a big target. I believe they are under pressure because of what they did last year. When you are under the spotlight that Hyderabad would score 300 or 250 this time, it’s very difficult to repeat it under that pressure. You have done it once,” he said.
Kaif also pointed out that other teams have somewhat figured out gameplans for SRH batters.
“The teams were not prepared last time. Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma could score even 100 runs in six overs, and they weren’t ready for that. However, I am seeing the plans this time. They are bowling slower balls and short balls to Abhishek,” Kaif pointed out.
However, SRH bowling coach James Franklin has backed the destructive batting forces to return to their explosive ways after back-to-back flop shows.
“That hasn’t worked in the last two games. It can sometimes be the nature of the game we play and the way our batters want to play the game. It hasn’t been our best stuff in past games. We have confidence in our group to play the attacking brand that we have shown over the last year or so,” Franklin told reporters in the post-match press conference.
“65 runs off the last four overs probably reflect that we didn’t get it quite right. At the halfway stage, KKR were 84 or 85/2. If we’d managed the back 10 overs right, we probably could have kept them to 170-180, but we didn’t quite right. The execution wasn’t right,” he said.
“As a coach, sometimes you sit there and think, could we have done better? Could we have been technically a bit braver in some aspects? Those are conversations that we’ll have in the coming days before we go again on Sunday. It’s reflection; it is between myself and the players who were out there, who will look to come back better, especially with the execution in death overs,” he added.
(With ANI Inputs)
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