Vettori not expecting 'belters' everywhere, urges SRH to adapt

There is a stat that Sunrisers Hyderabad would be itching to correct. They are the only team out of all of the teams participating in this season that has not yet won at home. They were outplayed by Mumbai Indians in their latest away game on April 17 at the Wankhede Stadium, which also didn't go as planned. It is not just the results that would worry the SRH camp but a clear pattern that has started to emerge from the defeats. Both of SRH's wins came at home, on extremely batting friendly surfaces, where they registered scores of 286 batting first and a successful chase of 246. However, in the other two games they played at home, they played to deceive, scoring 191 on a surface where 220 was equal and only 153 on the toughest surface. Away from home, the struggles have magnified. SRH are yet to breach the 170-run mark in matches outside Hyderabad this season. While there continues to be a debate over how much home advantage teams need to be given in the IPL, SRH have encountered trickier surfaces in their away games, whether those were by design or coincidence. Head coach Daniel Vettori is aware of his team's trends but didn't seem overly concerned about it. At the press conference following the race, Vettori stated, "I feel like no-one really has control over their surface." Therefore, when it comes to encountering wickets that don't suit us, there is a little bit of luck involved. But I think there has to be more to it from our side that we have to adapt." SRH's extremely aggressive openers struggled to get going quickly on a Wankhede pitch that played slower than usual. However, they did well to get through the PowerPlay without being separated, although that was largely due to MI's sloppy catching. Nevertheless, considering the SRH camp's firepower, 46/0 didn't appear to be too bad. However, apart from two final overs when Heinrich Klaasen and Aniket Verma were able to cash in, the innings never gained any momentum. Such was the efficiency of Mumbai Indians' bowling unit that three of SRH's top-four couldn't go at run-a-ball. Travis Head hung around for 29 deliveries for his 28, his slowest T20 innings where he has faced 20-plus deliveries. Even the usually dominant Klaasen had to bide his time and his strike-rate of 132 is inflated by the one big over at the back end. None of SRH's batters were able to quickly adjust to the surface's characteristics. The advent of dew, that came late in the SRH innings, then ensured a largely smooth chase for MI. We are aware of similar circumstances in Chennai and occasionally Ahmedabad. So we're not expecting to go over around the country and come up on belters. So the ball's in our court to realise that. Additionally, I believe we performed fairly well today. Through the middle stages, it was just extremely difficult. And I've credited Mumbai, how well they bowled throughout that innings. "In general it was a difficult batting surface, and 180 maybe would have been a par score and something that could have challenged Mumbai, but I think the way that they navigated the middle period, particularly their six-hitting prowess, took the game away from us." Change of pace was the key ingredient in the menu for MI's bowlers and they utilised it brilliantly. Of the 30 deliveries that were bowled by pacers with pace-off, only 36 runs were scored. They managed only a solitary breakthrough via this method but the pressure created with these deliveries paid off through other avenues. In contrast, SRH's pacers did manage three wickets off slower balls from 33 deliveries but it came at a cost of 60 runs. The difference in lengths was alarming, although dew also had a say in this. "I think Mumbai read the conditions exceptionally well, and after probably the first few overs, they really relied on that slower ball, and I think the slower ball was obviously effective, but it was mainly effective because of their execution, and there's some supreme exponents of it in Bumrah and Trent Boult and even Hardik Pandya. "I think we finished pretty well, but just that middle stage, the way that they bowled, didn't allow us to score.I thought we tried to counter it pretty well. I think we worked out how difficult it was trying to get through it, but credit to them the way that they bowled."