IPL 2025: Head coach Vettori admits SRH misread conditions in loss to MI

Hyderabad, April 24 (IANS) Sunrisers Hyderabad’s IPL 2025 campaign went from bad to worse on Wednesday night, as they succumbed to their sixth defeat of the season — this time at the hands of Mumbai Indians. Chasing a par score on a surface offering early movement, SRH were left reeling at 13 for 4 within the first five overs.

Head coach Daniel Vettori, speaking after the game, admitted that the team’s strategy to maximise the powerplay completely backfired.

"I think obviously, the toss was important. We wanted to bowl first because the conditions were vastly different, (it was a different) wicket to the previous ones. I mean, we've discussed that it's a 280, 250 wicket. So conditions changed dramatically. So to be able to get that assessment early around what a par score was, is obviously difficult.

"When you go in there early on, you're trying to obviously maximise that power play. And unfortunately, we weren't able to, and we kept losing wickets. Once we realised that the surface wasn't what we anticipated, then we needed to build towards that sort of 180 score. That, unfortunately, is difficult to do when you're 24 for four after the power play."

SRH’s ultra-aggressive intent in the powerplay, which had brought them success earlier in the season, proved their undoing on a wicket that had spice for seamers. Deepak Chahar and Trent Boult exploited the conditions with clinical new-ball spells, and Vettori acknowledged the team’s failure to recalibrate quickly.

"Understanding what a good score is, what a par score is and being able to set that up. Travis and Abhi (Abhishek Sharma), when they go, they're very aggressive and they take the game on and it's led to a lot of success for us. When they don't succeed, then it's the responsibility of the other batsmen. And potentially that's what we haven't had this season, around the ability for partnerships, for one or two guys to step up in games. We got two today, but it was just a little bit too late for us."

The only bright spark in the dismal evening for SRH was a 99-run stand between Heinrich Klaasen and Abhinav Manohar, which lifted the team to a modest 143 for 8. Mumbai chased it down with ease, but Vettori saw value in the fight.

Despite being second from bottom on the table with just two wins from eight games, Vettori remains optimistic. "IPL has been going a long time and there's been a lot of teams that have found themselves in this situation. And there's been a few teams that have been able to resurrect their seasons. And you look back to RCB last year after a difficult start. So if we can take some inspiration, it's from a team like them.

"Mumbai has done it on a few occasions, but ultimately it's going to take one performance. And we just haven't been able to put a collective performance together, bar the two games that we've won. So we're going to have to improve dramatically in all three facets," he said.

--IANS

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