HYDERABAD: Punjab Kings, who had two narrow victories in their previous games, were undone on Sunday night by Sunrisers Hyderabad bowlers and succumbed to an eight-wicket loss. It was a bad loss but spin bowling coach Sunil Joshi was not perturbed by the loss and said it was just an off-day at office.
“I think it is bound to happen as we are playing back-to-back games. There is so much travel, practice, travel and it’s a one off-day which everyone will have. It’s a larger tournament and it’s still early days. Hopefully we will come back stronger,” he said after the match.
Sunil, who had coached the Hyderabad Ranji Trophy team a couple of years ago, said the pitch was a good one. “I think the wicket was pretty good and we were around 30-35 runs short but Shikhar played a gem of an innings and showed why he is the best batter around,” he said.
The former India left-arm spinner said bowling dot balls is the mantra for success in T20 games. “I think it is very rare that a bowler, I would not say a spinner, I would say a bowler to get a five-wicket haul in a T20 as it is a batter dominated game. I think our mantra is to have more dot balls percentage inside the powerplay, in the middle overs or at the death. The bowling unit will focus on it and that’s where we put pressure on the batters so that they make errors.”
On Harpreet Brar he said: “Harpreet has been a wonderful bowler and we have seen what he has done last year, and he can only get better by focusing on the small areas where he needs to work on like spinning the ball along with bowling dot balls.”
Regarding Sam Curran, Joshi said: "Of course, Sam brings in a lot of experience as he is internationally well-versed and he has bowled in any situation and his batting adds advantage to the side.”
The coach was all praise for left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh. “Arshdeep, upfront, is giving us the breakthroughs and if you look at the previous games and today too, he has got us the breakthrough. Of course, SRH got a decent start today but Arshdeep, overall in the last 12 months, has remarkably done well and has improved his consistency of picking wickets and at the same time bowling under pressure and forcing batters to make errors. I think hitting those hard lines and consistently taking wickets, makes him a more attacking bowler.”
On the impact player rule, he said: “It’s a new rule and most of the teams are still looking at it. It is an interesting idea as someone can come in at the 19th over or even the 15th over and make a difference at any stage of the game. Those 20 runs or two wickets make an impact player more exciting.”
