The fresh wicket at the Wankhede, chosen for the match between Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad on Tuesday, exposed the chinks in batsmen when dealing with deliveries with minds of their own.
Stroke-players and sloggers struggled to read the ball off the pitch. Shikhar Dhawan, Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya found themselves staring down the barrel. T20 suddenly became a different contest and only two sixes were hit in all.
SRH’s victory was triggered by MI’s inability to adjust to the pitch. Coach Mahela Jayawardene admitted: “We probably played as if there were demons in the wicket, which weren’t there. Thinking-wise we were very poor.
“I was a little surprised by the slowness of the wicket. It was a fresh wicket and wasn’t ideal for us as a home team.
“Sometimes you need to take on challenges and adapt to them. We need to play the conditions. We saw how the wicket behaved when they (SRH) batted, so could’ve been much smarter in our approach. The need was for sensible batting, which we did not get,” said the MI coach. “I don’t’ think we played with our heads.”
