IPL 2023 Brian Lara | As a unit we didn’t perform as expected: Sunrisers coach Brian Lara

AHMEDABAD: Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Brian Lara attributed his team’s poor performance in the current season of the Indian Premier League (IPL 16) to their inability to perform well as a unit. The poor form of Rahul Tripathi and Abhishek Sharma only worsened the situation. Sunrisers (SRH) are likely to finish last in this season as well. He now has eight points from four wins and is out of the race for the playoffs. Gujarat Titans on Monday became the first team to make it to the playoffs after beating Sunrisers by 34 runs with the help of Shubman Gill’s century. Former West Indies captain Brian Lara told reporters after the match, “I think as a unit we could not perform as we expected. If you look at the paper, we have got a strong batting line-up but we haven’t performed as expected on most of the occasions which would have kept us in the top four at this stage of the tournament.” He said, “Rahul Tripathi or Abhishek Sharma, who scored more than 400 runs last year, were seen struggling this year. I believe that our team as a unit could not perform as expected. Lara also defended the decision not to include fast bowler Umran Malik in the playing XI in the last few matches. Malik played in seven out of 12 matches in the current season in which he took only five wickets. He took 22 wickets in the last season. Read this also He said, “I think you have to look at the form of the player. We had high hopes from Umran. He had (Sunrisers’ bowling coach) Dale Steyn to work with. But we play every match to win and for that we have to field our best XI. Form is something that we look at while selecting the team. We have 25 players from which we have to select the team. Lara compared Umran to Karthik Tyagi, who has got only one game so far this season. “I want you (media) to ask me questions about Tyagi because he is also a unique talent but he has got only one chance. So I don’t think we have made any mistake in the selection of the team.” (agency)