Dhawan credits bowlers, Yuvraj for huge win

Shikhar Dhawan, who scored an unbeaten 82 to steer Sunrisers Hyderabad to a match-winning total, credited his bowling unit and Yuvraj Singh for the huge victory over Mumbai Indians in Visakhapatnam.

Published : May 08, 2016 22:06 IST , Visakhapatnam

Shikhar Dhawan hit 10 fours and a six in his 57-ball knock.
Shikhar Dhawan hit 10 fours and a six in his 57-ball knock.
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Shikhar Dhawan hit 10 fours and a six in his 57-ball knock.

Sunrisers Hyderabad star opener Shikhar Dhawan, who struck a match-winning, unbeaten 82 against Mumbai Indians on Sunday, credited his team's bowling unit for an effective performance that sealed Sunrisers' big win.

>Report: Sunrisers thrashes Mumbai Indians by 85 runs

Speaking to media after the game, Dhawan said the playing XI is decided by the captain and the support staff. “We have got a very great fast bowling unit. There is no turn on the wicket, I feel it is better to play fast bowlers,” he said to a query. “When we play on turners, we have got spinners who can always get into the playing eleven. I feel that captain and support staff must have given a thought according to the pitch and that’s why they selected this side,” Dhawan said.

Referring to the communication problems of seamer Mustafizur Rahman, Dhawan reminds that he speaks in monosyllables like ‘good’ and ‘yes’.

 

“He doesn’t speak much but when he does, it's only in Bengali. Still, we have Ricky who speaks Bengali. If we have to tell him something, mostly he understands what we want to tell him. Sometimes if he does not understand, Ricky is there to tell him and he becomes the mediator for us. Of course, Mustafizu is a great bowler and has got a great sense of bowling and he understands,” the flamboyant opener explained.

“Mustafizur has made an impact in international cricket and he is maintaining it. You can see the quality of the slower ones, bouncers, yorkers, he has got got all kinds of deliveries. The best part is even if he is new to international cricket, he backs himself, backs his ability and that, I feel, works for him,” Dhawan said about Mustafizur.

Dhawan felt it was very crucial to build his fruitful partnership with Yuvraj Singh. “That’s where we took a bit of time and made the game a bit slow. Once we settled down. Yuvi Paaji was also set, we knew we had to change gears and Yuvi paaji played amazingly well and the way he is striking the ball, he is middling the ball nicely. His knock made a huge difference to reach our total,” Dhawan commented.

“When Yuvi paaji started hitting, we decided to change gears and go for bowlers, I stayed long enough in the middle and I was comfortable and knew what the bowler was going to do,” he explained to a query. “I did not want to take chances as we wanted to create partnership. Our patience for the particular moments came handy,” Dhawan felt.

'You want to forget these games'

Mumbai Indians Kieron Pollard said that Dhawan played a top-class innings summing up the situation nicely. “David Warner was the aggressor and then he played the role given in that team. I think he batted well,” he said to a query.

“To be honest, these sort of games, you can find many faults. At the end of the day, we come to play cricket, we come to give 100 per cent. Today is one of the games where you don’t want to pinpoint anything,” Pollard explained. “You want to actually forget because this is the backend of the tournament and you need the guys to be confident and not heads down now,” he added.

“We need all hands on the deck in the back end of the tournament. Our next game is on a good batting track in Bangalore in a couple of days,” he reminded.

“Even if you look back, last year as well, we were on a momentum, we had to win all our games. We were actually demolished by AB de Villiers at the Wankhede. We forgot it and we came back strong,” Pollard recalled.

“There are a lot of experienced guys in that dressing room experienced enough to know how to deal with such losses,” he explained.

“SRH bowlers had a better game than us. They did well in all three departments and we faltered in all three departments. We don’t want to go into ‘they bowled better’. As Mumbai Indians players, it is not about the opposition. It is about us and we do what is needed to win a cricket game. At the end of the day, we lost, it was a demoralising defeat and terrible disappointed,” he summed up tonight’s performance.

“We need to pick ourselves up and come confidently in the next game,” he signed off.

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