Shouldn't Have Been Chasing The Total We Ended Up Chasing: Tom Moody On SRH Loss vs RCB

Sunrisers Hyderabad got bowled out for 125 while chasing 193 runs against Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Tom Moody rued his side's inability to capitalise on small margins, which eventually proved to be a decisive factor in their 67-run loss to Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Wankhede Stadium.

In the first innings, Hyderabad dropped catches of Faf du Plessis (at 26 in the eighth over) and Dinesh Karthik (at eight in the final over). The drops turned out to be decisive as du Plessis carried his bat in the innings for an unbeaten 73 while Karthik slammed two more sixes and a four against left-arm pacer Fazalhaq Farooqui to take 25 runs off the final over.

"I think it's just the small margins that we didn't capitalise on. We shouldn't have been chasing the total we ended up chasing. We dropped two key catches which sort of kept us under pressure. We failed to execute our plans for a couple of players that we'd discussed. When you're missing out on those small margins, it makes it difficult for your batting group to chase a total that is 20-25 runs more than it should have been," said Moody in the post-match virtual press conference.

Chasing a mammoth 193 wasn't going to be easy for Hyderabad, who lost openers Kane Williamson and Abhishek Sharma in the opening over and eventually crashed to 125 all out. "And then you have a situation where you have a run-out in the very first over, which was an interesting outcome for us and then losing a wicket straight after that, you're immediately on the back foot. It did make that run chase a lot bigger than it should have been even more daunting," observed Moody.

In eleven matches of IPL 2022, Williamson has been in patchy form, scoring only 199 runs at an average of 19.90 and a strike rate of 96.13. Asked if a move down the order would benefit Williamson, Moody wasn't a fan of the idea and felt the Hyderabad skipper can leave his impact in the remaining three matches crucial from the playoffs point of view.

"We've thought about that. But we felt that (Rahul) Tripathi-(Aiden) Markram-(Nicholas) Pooran at 3-4-5 have been one of the strengths of our batting. To be fair to Kane, he didn't even face a ball today, so it'll be pretty hard to judge his form on today's outing. We back him, he's a world-class player, there's no question of that. He'll have his moment to stamp his authority on this tournament."

Moody further backed tearaway pacer Umran Malik to come good despite going wicketless in the last three matches while leaking 125 runs in ten overall overs. "It's a real learning experience for him. You have to look at the volume of cricket he has played, which is very minimal, really. This run of games in a row for him is something he's not used to."

"He's not used to playing this regular cricket, not only this but the high intensity of cricket the IPL is. He's on a very steep learning curve. Over the last couple of outings, there's no question that he hasn't quite got it right. We're doing our best to support him and guide him to learn from these experiences."