More often than not, whenever openers Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head fire, Sunrisers Hyderabad win. And, when they flop, SRH fail too.
Head coach Daniel Vettori agreed with this on Wednesday ahead of their clash with Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede. “Their opening partnership has been critical to our success and the two games that we’ve won so far, they’ve been big contributors,” said Vettori at the match-eve press conference.
SRH coach Daniel Vettori
“The reality is that the Powerplay has a huge influence on the results of games, and when those two are able to dominate it like they have in our wins, it takes a huge part of that winning formula into account. Credit to them and the way they’ve played and how consistently they’ve been able to put pressure on bowlers rather than worrying about the other batsmen not being able to do it in some situations. I think we’ll see over the course of the season that this will balance itself out,” added the New Zealander.
Another SRH top-order batsman Ishan Kishan will also be crucial, not only due to his fine form — he’s one of the team’s two century-makers this IPL — but also given his knowledge, having played seven seasons for MI (2018 to 2024). “Obviously, it would be foolish not to tap into some of his [Kishan’s] knowledge and understanding around the Mumbai mentality and how they deal with certain situations and also understanding the surface, how it plays, the dew factor, all those little things. So, Ishan is a wealth of knowledge for myself and the rest of the coaches for this game, but mainly because he’s a fantastic player. We saw that in the first game. I feel he’s still the batsman that scored that 100 in the first game. He’s still got that confidence. So, coming here, knowing that he’s played so well and is familiar with the conditions, we hope for a big game from him,” said Vettori.