When Manish Pandey came in to bat at the fall of Jonny Bairstow's wicket at No. 3, people were puzzled with the decision. In the last game that Pandey had played for the Sunrisers, he had struggled to get going, which led to his ouster from the next few games. Williamson, on the other hand, was coming off an unbeaten half-century while batting at No. 3 against the Delhi Capitals the other night.
SRH could have really done with sending Williamson at No. 3 given what he did in his short stay at the crease. Pandey scored 61 off 46 balls and along with David Warner - who also scored a half-century – added 106 runs for the second wicket. But here is what was wrong. They took almost 14 overs to add these runs with runs failing to come at a good pace. Once the partnership was broken, out walked Williamson at 4 and scored 26 off 10 balls to lift SRH to a decent total.
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Hindsight is always a good thing, but after Chennai Super Kings beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by seven wickets to register their fifth straight win in IPL 2021, Warner explained the idea behind keeping Williamson at 4, saying the New Zealander was always their No. 4 batsman.
{{/usCountry}}Hindsight is always a good thing, but after Chennai Super Kings beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by seven wickets to register their fifth straight win in IPL 2021, Warner explained the idea behind keeping Williamson at 4, saying the New Zealander was always their No. 4 batsman.
{{/usCountry}}"I'm not too sure. He was going to bat 4 and at the end of the day, we soaked up too many balls. At the end of the day, he bats at 4 and that's his job. I think we have a day game here as well. 170 is par during the night, but we need to be positive. We're a bunch of fighters. The guys will be hurt by this but we will be up and about," Warner said during the post-match presentation ceremony.
SRH were hurt by the fact that their bowlers could not pick up early wickets, allowing CSK’s opening pair of Faf du Plessis and Ruturaj Gaikwad to put on another century-plus partnership. Rashid Khan did return 3/36, but his strike came a little too late for the Sunrisers. "Their two openers batted really well, but we fought well in the end. Felt like you could squeeze a bit after those wickets but they were always ahead in the game," the SRH captain added.