Dubai: VVS Laxman, the batting mentor of Sunrisers Hyderabad, is wary of the kind of wickets that will be on offer during IPL 2020 as the Orange Army settled down at the Anantara resort at the Palm on Sunday. Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals were the last two teams to arrive in Dubai in the same chartered flight.
“Probably the wickets may be on the slower side but we have to just wait and see because we may just be surprised with the efforts put in by the ground staff,’’ Laxman said in a video tweeted by the franchise.
“The outfield will be fantastic but the wickets are something that I hope will be well taken care of by the ground staff.”
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Laxman, meanwhile, assured fans that the quality of cricket will not suffer even if the matches are played in front of empty stands owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I can assure all the fans of the game that they will really enjoy the competition even though there won’t be any crowd or any spectators on the ground,” Laxman said, going on to add: “Don’t ever think that the energy or the quality of cricket will come down.”
Laxman said the management had made up its mind before the 2020 auction to pick young Indian batsmen for the middle-order, which resulted in the inclusion of promising players such as Priyam Garg, Virat Singh and B Sandeep among others.
“In the auction, it was a very intentional effort to have the youngsters. While they are youngsters, they are all the most prolific performers in domestic cricket.
“When you see the composition of our team, we had a lot of experienced players from both overseas and India.
“But when we look at the domestic players, we (were) required to strengthen our batting, especially our middle-order batting. So we went with the performer in the last couple of seasons.”
I have always admired him (Trevor Bayliss) and all the interactions I have had with him have been excellent - I learnt something with every interaction. He is cool and calm and also has the temperament of handling the best of teams and the best of players
The Sunrisers made significant changes to their support staff earlier in the year, bringing in Trevor Bayliss in place of Tom Moody as the head coach. Brad Haddin, who has worked with Bayliss before, replaced Simon Helmot as the assistant coach.
“Trevor is one of the most successful coaches in world cricket; England won the World Cup for the first time under his coaching,” Laxman said.
“I have always admired him and all the interactions I have had with him have been excellent - I learnt something with every interaction. He is cool and calm and also has the temperament of handling the best of teams and the best of players.”
“Brad Haddin is a hardcore competitor. He will definitely give 100 per cent or probably more than 100 per cent as the assistant coach.”
