HYDERABAD: The pitch at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium has been a high-scoring one but on Sunday, Sunrisers Hyderabad struggled to get going in their five-wicket loss to Lucknow Super Giants.SRH assistant coach James Franklin said that they were caught off guard by the pitch’s behaviour. Speaking after his side’s loss in their opening home game, he said, “I think the pitch definitely caught us off guard, which was a little bit disappointing. I think you saw that with a couple of the dismissals that we had. And to be fair, I thought LSG bowled beautifully in the Power-play. They didn’t really give us too much to score on top of that,” he said.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Sunrisers struggled to get going against a disciplined LSG bowling, ending up with 156/9 after being reduced to 35/4 in the first 10 overs. LSG chased down the target with one ball to spare.Franklin credited Nitish Kumar Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen for providing the bowlers with something to bowl at. “But our batters really struggled with the pace of the pitch. Particularly once the ball hit the surface, it just wasn’t coming onto the bat. I think their (Nitish and Klaasen) ability to be able to score a little bit more freely at the back end in the second half of the innings was probably down to the fact that they actually spent a bit of time in the middle. Obviously, the field spread, so the ability to rotate strike was there,” he reckoned.Meanwhile, Super Giant’s pace spearhead Mohammed Shami said they had worked hard behind the scenes to contain the batters. “We knew that the Sunrisers batters go hard at the bowlers and our plan was to not give them any room and bowl slower ones and use variations. We knew that slower ones are the hardest to score runs off. And when we execute the plans well like this, it gives results. I am very happy that we executed our plans,” said Shami who bagged Player of the Match for his impressive 2/9 bowling figures.Shami also bowled an impressive 18 dot balls in his four-over spell, tying down the SRH batters. “I worked very hard with the new ball and knew what to bowl in what conditions. It comes with a lot of hard work. I knew the conditions well and we prepared accordingly,” Shami revealed.He also credited that working with LSG’s bowling coach Bharat Arun in the past helped him. “We both worked when he was with the Indian team and we knew each other well. When you know the support staff and their style of working, it becomes easy. And joining the Lucknow team and adjusting didn’t take much time. It is like my second home,” added the Indian cricketer.
