Sunrisers Hyderabad pacer Dale Steyn on Tuesday rued that their bowlers performed below par at a critical stage of the match a day after Kieron Pollard’s brutal assault guided Mumbai Indians to a seven-wicket win in a Pepsi Indian Premier League game.
“I think we were in a situation where we could have won the game last night. A little bit of better planning, not with the rotation of the bowlers but where we bowled may have won us the game. Not necessarily who bowled, we may have hit our areas a little bit wrong,” Steyn told PTI here.
Insisiting that important lessons have been learnt from yesterday’s game, Steyn was optimistic about the team good performances in their last two league games before the play-offs.
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“But lessons learnt, we have got two more games and we need to win them. So we will try and do that,” Steyn said.
Sunrisers were in complete control of the game, before Big-hitting Pollard pulled the rug from under the visitors’ feet with a whirlwind knock of 66 off only 27 balls.
“Last night we had a superb guy come out and play brilliantly and took the game away from us in 12 balls. That happens. It is cricket. We have done that to teams in this IPL and it has happened to us a couple of times as well,” said Steyn, who has been roped in as brand ambassador for Evolution Sports Nutrition in which former South African cricketer and Mumbai Indians fielding coach Jonty Rhodes is the director.
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Pollard struck eight sixes and two fours and his assault helped Mumbai add 50 runs in the 17th and 18th overs bowled by Tissera Pereira and Amit Mishra that swung the pendulum in the home team’s way who eventually won with three balls to spare while chasing a challenging 179.
“He chanced his arms after that (16th over bowled by Steyn). I think he knew that they had to do something.
Straight after strategic time out, Rohit took it straight away and it went for six. Then he took a single and Pollard just decided that he is going to lay down the hammer and felt like that was the time and we also knew that we needed to take wickets and we were trying to get him out,” said the South African pace spearhead.
Steyn, who holds the record for bowling most dot balls in this IPL, said he loves to test himself against players like Sachin Tendulkar but rued that he could bowl just one ball to the senior cricketer yesterday.
“I always look forward to play against him. He is one of my all-time favourite players. He is basically the God of India and to play against him on his home turf and to have gotten him out would have been great,” he said.