'Still Going to Play Our Brand of Cricket': SRH Won't Shun Aggression Despite Qualifier 1 Defeat

Sunrisers Hyderabad will continue to play their aggressive brand of cricket despite the crushing loss against Kolkata Knight Riders to earn a place in the IPL final, said SRH assistant coach Simon Helmot.

SRH suffered an eight-wicket hammering from a rampant Kolkata Knight Riders, who marched into the final for the fourth time after chasing a paltry total of 160 with more than six overs to spare in Qualifier 1 on Tuesday.

“Look, take nothing away from us. We’re still going to play our brand of cricket and tonight wasn’t our night. That happens,” Helmot told the media here on Tuesday.

“We’re going to put this game aside very, very quickly because we have to move on in a couple of days’ time and play in Chennai obviously against RCB or Rajasthan.”

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SRH will get another chance to secure a spot in the final in Qualifier 2 when they take on the winner of the Eliminator between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Rajasthan Royals on May 24 in Chennai.

One of the reasons for SRH’s failure was Travis Head’s early dismissal. Head was removed for a second consecutive duck by fellow Australian Mitchell Starc, but Helmot said the ultra-aggressive opener will be ready for a fight in Qualifier 2.

“There’s two heavyweight fighters. Travis Head, who likes to score quickly and be aggressive and obviously Mitchell Starc, who is a really aggressive bowler. At times there’s only one winner,” said Helmot.

“We’ve seen over the season, Travis has been on top of the bowlers, so we want Travis to continue to play his positive and aggressive way,” he said.

“Him and Abbie (Abhishek Sharma) have been a tremendous partnership up the top for us so onwards and upwards we don’t concern ourselves about the dismissals. Obviously he wants to score runs and I know that Travis will be back bigger and better on the 24th,” he said.

“Definitely, not anything to do with the toss”

Historically, teams have won five games while chasing at the Narendra Modi stadium and only twice have teams, who batted first, could successfully defend totals.

SRH skipper Pat Cummins opted to bat and in hindsight the decision proved wrong since Starc utilised early evening conditions on a placid wicket to strike thrice inside the powerplay and set up KKR’s win.

“Definitely, not anything to do with the toss. Unfortunately, today wasn’t our day. They bowled very well up front. This ground has shown that you can score big in the first innings and put pressure on the opposition. It just wasn’t our day,” Helmot said.

“He (Starc) bowled very well. He bowled fast. He was managing to move the ball. He has been a quality player for a long time and that is why he was a sought-after player in the auction in the first place.”

Helmot said even though SRH knew their score of 159 all-out in 19.3 overs was not enough to challenge KKR, they struggled with the ball too which marked an overall off day for his side.

“The conversation is (that) you’re always in the game. You’ve got 160 runs to defend so we need to bowl as best we possibly can. But we just struggled to sort of get any consistency, or I suppose momentum in the game.”

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