DIFFICULT DECISION TO DROP WARNER, BUT WE WANTED TO TRY NEW COMBINATION, SAYS BAYLISS

NEW DELHI: After suffering a 55-run loss against Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League (IPL), SunRisers Hyderabad head coach Trevor Bayliss said that it was a difficult decision to drop David Warner from the playing XI.

On Saturday, SRH had removed David Warner as its captain and the former skipper was not even in the playing XI for the game against Rajasthan. Jos Buttler’s masterful 124-run knock was followed by a spirited bowling performance as Rajasthan Royals defeated SunRisers Hyderabad by 55 runs here at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Sunday. “It was a very difficult decision to drop Warner, a guy who has had so much success for the team, that was the way we wanted to go and try a different combination working for us,” said Bayliss while replying to an ANI query during a virtual press conference.

“Very challenging to adapt to a new captain, but I do not think there will be too much of a problem as Kane has been the captain before in the last 2-3 years. An experienced captain who also leads New Zealand, we did not play well tonight,” he added.

Further talking about Warner warming the bench, Bayliss said: “Like any player that gets dropped, he was disappointed, he was doing as much as he could as the 12th man for the team and the boys. He was cleaning up the bottles in the end, I noticed. He has been talking with Kane and the other boys.”

For Rajasthan Royals, Chris Morris and Mustafizur Rahman scalped three wickets each. For SRH, Manish Pandey was the top scorer after playing a knock of 31 runs. With this win, Rajasthan has moved to the fifth spot with 6 points from 7 games while SunRisers Hyderabad remains at the bottom spot with just two points.

Earlier, Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson starred with the bat as Rajasthan Royals posted a score of 220/3 in the allotted twenty overs. Buttler and Samson played knocks of 124 and 48 respectively for the Royals. Riyan Parag also played a useful cameo of 15 runs from eight balls. For SRH, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, and Vijay Shankar returned with one wicket each.

“Obviously, Rashid is our best performer. He had a decent record against Jos Buttler in the past so we thought to give him an over pretty early to try and get Buttler before he got going. It was a flat wicket and so Kane decided to keep Rashid going, unfortunately, it did not work but that’s the way game goes sometimes,” said Bayliss.