Sunrisers Hyderabad has an appalling record at home as in the 2023 season, the team just won one match at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium and finished at the bottom of the points table with just eight points that came from four wins and 10 losses.
In a forgettable season where the then Aiden Markram-led side lost its first two matches and then bounced back to win the next two only to fall flat for the rest of the tournament.
Such was the fall that there were no more take-offs and this is something new skipper Pat Cummins wants to change.
Sunrisers lost to Kolkata Knight Riders in its opening fixture narrowly by four runs and having returned home to play its first game against the Mumbai Indians, Cummins wants to press on the home advantage.
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“In IPL teams that have done well you try and make home your fortress and we have got some experience in our team who have played here. Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar) has been playing for 10 years and knows the conditions well. We will use our experience and it’s really important to win at home. The crowd is really amazing,” Cummins said during a media interaction.
“I think the more you play, the less you get worried about a game that doesn’t go perfectly right. You start looking at your whole body of work and someone like Bhuvi, who is such a seasoned player is amazing in all facets of the game. As a captain really lucky to set that flexibility. If Bhuvi is looking to get some big wickets upfront, I can push him and I can bowl some quality overs at the back end of the innings. The biggest plus is to have Buvi’s four overs whenever we want him,” he added.
Speaking about the last game where his team was in touching distance of victory but fell short by four runs, Cummins said: “I think you look at the whole game and there are a lot of positives from the last match and it was a close one. I think we were aggressive and took on their bowlers with match-ups but fell short in a couple of areas. T20 will have games like that but really proud of ourselves where we nearly got over the line.”
T Natarajan was the pick of the bowlers with three wickets along with Mayank Markande picking two. But Sunrisers came under the bashing of Andre Russell who smashed a brilliant 25-ball 64. Despite the loss, Cummins kept faith in his bowling attack.
“Our bowlers were fantastic, particularly bowling to Andre Russell who is a harder job in cricket. It all comes down to execution,” the World Cup-winning captain said.
During the chase Heinrich Klassen with a 29-ball 63 kept his team alive and the skipper said the top-order plays an important role.
“Markram and Klassen are really class international players and there is no doubt about it. We want to maximise the PowerPlay with the top guys.”
When asked how different it is to captain an IPL team when compared to leading Australia, Cummins said: “I haven’t captained Australia in T20s and it’s a bit faster. IPL is a bit different as well as it is more high-scoring pretty much when compared to different competitions in the world but it’s been fantastic, especially with the bowling line-up.”
Dewald Brevis was the showstopper for Mumbai Indians with the bat a couple of days ago but his team failed to open the account as it fell short by six runs against Gujarat Titans.
Reflecting on the loss, Brevis said that the team will try to bounce back against Hyderabad. The questions largely revolved around Hardik Pandya’s leadership who replaced Rohit Sharma. Brevis said the team environment is good under the new leader.
“The team environment is really great and Rohit is still an amazing leader and I still learn from him. The team environment is really in a good space,” he said.
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