Sunrisers wary of bruised RCB bouncing back on home turf
Bengaluru, April 25 (IANS) Title holder Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) is wary of the battered Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) bouncing back on home turf in their Indian Premier League (IPL-10) tie on Tuesday here.
“Only a fool can think of RCB repeating its reckless batting against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Kolkata on Sunday. They boast of the game’s most destructive players like (Chris) Gayle, (Virat) Kohli and AB (de Villiers),” SRH Head Coach Tom Moody told reporters at the pre-match presser here.
RCB suffered its fifth and a humiliating defeat on Sunday posting IPL’s lowest score ever of 49 in 9.4 overs after restricting KKR to 131 in 19.3 overs at Eden Gardens.
“We are not paying attention to what happened to RCB but working on getting our right combination against them for Tuesday’s match and excel in every part of the game, as they are the most dangerous team in the IPL,” said Moody.
SRH is also desperate for its first away win in this season, having lost all the three league ties — against Mumbai Indians by four wickets in Mumbai on April 12, against KKR by 17 runs in Kolkata on April 15 and Rising Pune Supergiant by 6 wickets at Pune on April 22.
SRH, however, won all its four league ties on their home ground in Hyderabad so far in this tournament.
It won the tournament for the first time beating RCB in the IPL-9 final by 8 runs on May 29, 2016 and the opener game in IPL-10 on April 5 in Hyderabad.
“We are not taking RCB lightly or undermining their ability to fight back though we won the last two games against them, but they do not count for Tuesday match. We have to be on cue with every aspect of the game,” reiterated Moody.
Observing that the pitch in the Chinnaswamy stadium was not similar to what it was last year, the former Australian cricketer said SRH was preparing for a keen contest against RCB even on a low-scoring ground, as no team posted 200 runs so far in this season.
On Muttiah Muralitharan’s comment that SRH’s pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the best bowler in the history of IPL, Moody said as Murali had seen a lot of cricket, he was a pretty good judge.
“There is no question that Kumar is having a very good year. He has been outstanding over the period of time. His greatest strength is his ability to strike in the initial stage of the game and towards end,” he added.
The legendary Sri Lankan right-arm spinner is the bowling coach of SRH.
“We are looking forward to choking up a win here. We have had very fond memories of this venue, so hopefully we can walk away with the same,” added Moody.
Of the seven games the 2016 runners-up (RCB) played so far, including three away, it won only two – one against Delhi Daredevils by 15 runs here on April 8 and another against Gujarat Lions at Rajkot by 21 runs on April 18 and are languishing at the bottom of the eight-team table with 4 points from seven league ties.