IPL 2023: Virat Kohli struck his sixth tournament century on Thursday, as RCB crushed SRH by eight wickets in Hyderabad. While the latter's head coach Brian Lara was all praise for Kohli, he had no explanation for the hosts' six home losses.
Former champion SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) head coach Brian Lara admitted that his team came up against a "Virat Kohli at his best", but found it hard to explain why they lost six out of the seven home games, which dashed its Indian Premier League (IPL) playoffs chances. Already out of the tournament, SRH did post a decent total of 186, riding on Heinrich Klaasen's brilliant hundred.
But, Klaasen's effort was overshadowed by former India skipper's 63-ball-100 and his 172-run opening stand with skipper Faf du Plessis (71) as RCB won by eight wickets with four balls to spare. ".. Our guys played brilliant cricket but we came up against Virat Kohli at his best, and Faf, who has done a tremendous job for RCB throughout the season. He [Faf] is the current Orange Cap holder, right? So, we came up against two world-class players and overall I felt was a good effort from the boys," Lara said after his team's ninth defeat in 13 games as they languish at the bottom of the 10-team table.
The legendary southpaw couldn't put a finger on why SRH lost six home games which became its undoing. "It's hard to sit here and explain in a broad sense why but just that we are going to get better, but this sort of record -- one win in seven [home games] is something you don't expect but it has happened," Lara said.
"It was a good learning experience. The spectators have been tremendous but maybe we can start preparing from now, and pay them back for the support they have us this year," he added. Lara feels that the Uppal Stadium track nullified home advantage, as it was pretty good for batting and didn't give his team any distinct home advantage. Having said that, he praised curators for preparing a good track.
" There is a little bit of home advantage and you got to use your matches at home. It's your facility but in Hyderabad, I think it's fair conditions. At the end of the day, the better team on the day wins the game. I must say I congratulate the ground staff for producing good tracks, it's just every time, we came up short," Lara said in his team's defence.
"I think it was a good pitch. It spun, and it was a bit slow, There was a purchase as the game went on. Tonight [Thursday], I felt my boys played very good cricket and took the game deep, but they were slightly better on the day, I am not overly disappointed with it, at the start of the season, if we could have taken it to the wire would have been brilliant," the holder of the highest individual Test score, said.
(With inputs from PTI)