Bangalore: Not undermining Dale Steyn’s ability with the ball, Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner said that he wishes to continue with New Zealand speedster Trent Boult in the playing XI before he turns to the South African pacer’s services in IPL VIII.
Boult, who was just behind leading-wicket taker Mitchell Starc in the World Cup, bagged three wickets in the team’s eight-wicket win against hosts Royal Challengers Bangalore, on Monday.
“The condition suited him here and suited him in the last game. We just feel Trent is just ahead of Dale. We will definitely use Dale in the tournament ... At the moment Trent is going fantastic so Dale just misses out,” Warner told reporters at the post-match press conference.
Warner lauded his bowlers to restrict RCB to under 170 by using the wet condition to swing the ball and hit the right areas. “The bowling was really good. I felt our bowlers used the conditions well early on to swing the ball. We gave away in the middle overs — Karn Sharma bowled really well PK (Praveen Kumar) did well too. Ravi (Bopara) got at couple of good wickets,” he said.
Asked whether the wicket was difficult to bat on or they made it look easy, Warner said, “The way they (RCB) bowled allowed us to play the way we did. We bowled the right line and length,” he added.
He further said they did not bowl well against Chennai Super Kings, a match they lost, as they gave far too many extras. “In Chennai we felt we did not bowl well at the start.
“We bowled lot of extras. Their bowlers adopted better than what we did. We got smashed,” he said.
Asked the reason for the bowling turnaround against RCB, Warner said his bowlers avoided giving extras as they did against Chennai, especially when Mahendra Singh Dhoni and ton-up Brendon McCullum came hard at them, scripting scintillating innings.
“We talked about adapting to conditions as fast as we could. In Chennai we didn’t bowl many slower bowls.
“Unfortunately we let ourselves down by bowling an extra over with six wines and a couple of no balls — especially when Dhoni and McCullum coming at you so hard,” he said.
On shuffling Kane Williamson, Warne said, “Every batsman knows he has to be versatile whichever position he is asked to play. We sent Kane down the order the other day because we had a chase on.”
