Sunrisers Hyderabad leg-spinner Rashid Khan said that keeping things simple and bowling to his strengths and batsman’s weakness is his secret of success and has been reaping its rewards, after his side’s win against the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) in the Indian Premier League (IPL), on Thursday.
“On these wickets, you have to adjust yourself with line and length, which is the key here. As soon as I came and bowled the first three balls, I realised what is the right length on this wicket and how should I bowl.”
Rashid came to bowl the 8th over of the KXIP innings. He bowled his first two overs economically giving away just 7 runs in them but the other two spinners were going for the runs as Abhishek Sharma gave 15 in his over and Nicholas Pooran smashed Abdul Samad for 28 runs in an over.
Asked if he had any suggestion for the young leggie, Rashid said that he spoke to Samad about varying the line and length and bowl good ones against power-hitters like Pooran, who can clear any boundary with ease.
In the absence of their lead bowler, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, all the SRH bowlers came to the party on Thursday and bundled out the KXIP batting line-up for a meagre 132, with all of them chipping in with the wickets except Samad.
Asked about if his absence will affect their bowling plans, Rashid said that losing Bhuvneshwar was huge as he has been a consistent performer for their team both in the powerplay and at the death, but he said that players like T Natarajan, Khaleel have stepped up and they have enough bowling resources as a backup.
Sunrisers on the back of a 160-run opening partnership, scored 201 runs and Rashid said having a huge total like that on the board takes off the pressure from the bowlers. He applauded both the SRH batsmen, saying Jonny Bairstow and David Warner have been doing well for SRH since the last season and when they both are set it is difficult to stop them.
After the partnership, SRH’s innings tumbles as they could score only 41 runs with the loss of 6 wickets in the last five overs. Asked if the middle-order’s form is a concern, Rashid said that in a format like T20 it happens, sometimes top-order isn’t able to get the runs and middle-order does the job and vice-versa.
Defending 201, SRH were off to a great start as they got two KXIP batsmen out in the powerplay itself but Nicholas Pooran with his counter-attack looked dangerous at one stage. Rashid commended the batsman for playing an unbelievable innings but said that he knew that Pooran wanted to just play out his over and dot balls helped him increase the pressure resulting in his wicket. The next ball, Rashid got Mohammad Shami plumb in front of the wicket and had a double-wicket maiden over.
Rashid Khan has been an important cog in the SRH’s bowling wheel in this tournament. In the last four games, he has taken 7 wickets with an economy of 3.75 with the figures of 3/14, 0/12, 1/22 and 3/12 in his quota of four overs in each game.
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