IPL 2023 | Brian Lara: We came up against Virat Kohli at his best

Sunrisers Hyderabad 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 their IPL play-offs chances.

Already out of tournament, Sunrisers Hyderabad did post a decent total of 186, riding on Heinrich Klaasen’s brilliant hundred.

But Klaasen’s effort was overshadowed by former India skippers 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 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 10-team table. The legendary southpaw couldn’t put a finger on why SRH lost six home games which became their undoing.

“Its 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 may be we can start preparing from now, and pay them back for support they have us this year,” he added.

Lara feels that Uppal Stadium track actually 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 its fair conditions. At the end of the day, better team on the day wins the game. I must say I congratulate the ground staff for producing good tracks, it’s just each and every time, we came up short,” Lara said in his team’s defence.

“I think it was a good pitch. It spun, it was a bit slow, There was 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 highest individual Test score, said.

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