It’s team effort: Warner
Victorious Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner with all humility hailed Virat Kohli as a “great leader” as he termed it a total “team effort” after beating Royal Challengers Bangalore by eight runs in the Indian Premier League final on Sunday night.
By : migrator
Update: 2016-05-30 13:35 GMT
Bengaluru
“It was a fantastic team achievement. To lead this side and the support from the players, me pulling my weight with the runs, it has been a hard journey. It’s a team effort. To have the perfect game, we needed to gel. For us, the key was team effort all the way,” Warner said.
Asked about the target, Warner said: “We knew, we had to get 200. Virat Kohli, what a great leader! I can’t take it away from him. He set the benchmark this season. We knew we had to win three straight games. To win in Bangalore, we were underdogs. But, we batted well, bowled well and fielded well. In 24 hours, I will be off to the Caribbean. Time to have a beer.”
Set a steep target of 209 to chase, it was left to the Kohliled batting unit to achieve their biggest target of the season in the biggest game, having lost two finals, in 2009 and 2011.
RCB appeared on course with Chris Gayle getting them off to a flier. Kohli lived up to his reputation and performed on the big stage, scoring his seventh half-century.
His dismissal ruled out any more reasons to celebrate as the rest of the batting unit crumbled under the pressure of maintaining a high run-rate. AB De Villiers and Shane Watson tried to push the score, but caved in under pressure. Sunrisers’ bowlers played their part professionally. Buoyed by the return of the in-form Mustafizur Rahman, they didn’t let go once they had the game in their grip. It had been touted as a contest between RCB’s batting and SRH’s bowling attack. Quite aptly it came down that as the two sides vied for their maiden title.
SUNRISERS’ SECRET OF SUCCESS
- David Warner not just remained calm but also was an inspirational figure. His brilliance with the bat and his understanding with Shikhar Dhawan at the top formed a good foundation for posting match winning totals.
- Moises Henriques and Ben Cutting sizzled with their all-round abilities. Yuvraj Singh showed he had the temperament in crunch situations with crucial runs.
- A pace attack led by Ashish Nehra and later by Bhuvaneshwar Kumar along with Mustafizur Rahman formed a lethal combination with the ball.
- Yuvraj Singh and Ashish Nehra were the franchise’s most expensive buys at Rs. 7 crore and Rs. 5.5 crore respectively. Both the aging warhorses’ sojourn were plagued with injuries. While Yuvraj missed the first half of the tournament, Nehra missed the second half due to an injury.
- Yuvraj played 10 matches and scored 236 runs that included while Nehra played eight matches and knocked off nine wickets. But Nehra was the vital cog around which the other pacers revolved.
- An experienced and ardent support staff in Tom Moody, Muttiah Muralitharan and VVS Laxman completed the team’s success formula.
- The franchise made some vital buys in the auction in February. While Mustafizur Rahman was a steal at Rs 1.4 crore, Barinder Sran was bought Rs 1.2 crore. The hero in the final, Ben Cutting was bought at just Rs 50 lakh. The only costly buy SRH had was Deepak Hooda at Rs 4.2 crore from a base price of Rs 10 lakh.
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