IPL 2023: 'KKR didn't beat us, we lost the game,' says SRH coach Brian Lara

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) coach Brian Lara on blamed his batters for the defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at home on Thursday, admitting that his team had thrown the match away from a winning position.

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The Sunrisers suffered their sixth defeat in nine outings in the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL) after their five-run loss at the hands of the Nitish Rana-led Knight Riders at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. The 2016 champions failed to chase the 172-run target down despite needing just 38 to win off the last 30 deliveries with plenty of wickets in hand.

“We keep losing couple of wickets in powerplay and that always sets you back a bit. We again ask (Heinrich) Klassen, who has been batting tremendous for us, to do all the hardwork. He is coming in at No 6, we have got five quality players before him. It’s always been a task for him,” Lara said in the post-match press conference.

“The batters obviously will know the responsibility of winning such a game on a good batting track but we are unable to do it.

“We have to lay a bit more importance on partnerships and understanding a bit of match awareness. It’s all great to be aggressive but you have to got to use a little bit of upstairs to get the job done,” added Lara, who side continue to sit at the ninth spot, above the bottom-ranked Delhi Capitals.

Lara praised the KKR spin duo of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy.

“They are quality spinners. We have seen that as a trend that as the tournament goes on spinners are coming into play. The likes of Narine, Chakravarthy, they are all world-class spinners.

“We did put on a very good partnership (Aiden Markram and Klassen). We got ourselves right back in the game with a couple of big overs. Then again we lost a couple of wickets at very crucial stage of the match.

“I would say that we had a game to win and we have to hold our hands up and say they didn’t beat us we lost the game. The game was in our hands and we lost the game,” the West Indian great said.

The former champions have managed only three wins in nine outings, which has severely dented their playoff chances.

“The situation is that we want to be as positive as possible. We found ourselves a little bit tentative chasing a 140-odd against Delhi and find ourselves at the bottom of ranking. We will try to inject some positivity and intent in our batting,” Lara said.

KKR spinner Chakravarthy, meanwhile, said his game plan to challenge SRH batters to hit on the longer side of the boundary worked well.

Read | ‘Heartbeat was touching 200,’ says Chakravarthy after KKR’s win over SRH

“Definitely, there was lot of pressure, the only thing Nitish (Rana) was telling me was to challenge the longer end, so that was our basic plan. We wanted keep it simple and challenge them on the longer side,” he said.

“It’s definitely a very important win for us because from now it’s all do or die matches for us and we have to keep winning.”

With inputs from PTI

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