Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) captain Pat Cummins acknowledged that his team didn’t perform well after losing to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by 80 runs in Kolkata on Thursday. This defeat marked SRH’s third loss in a row in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, leaving them in search of answers. Cummins shared his disappointment, saying the target felt achievable. Not a great time. I think this was gettable, a pretty good wicket. We left too many runs in the field and fell short, he noted after the match.
He pointed out the need for some reflection, suggesting the team might need to rethink their strategy. We need to be realistic. Three games in a row haven’t gone our way. Maybe we should look back at whether we could have made better choices. Our batters are best when they take risks, but looking back, we could have picked different options, he added, as reported by ESPNcricinfo.
While he felt the bowling wasn’t terrible, he admitted that fielding mistakes hurt them. It was mainly our fielding that let us down. Overall, the bowling was okay. We should have taken a few catches and stopped them earlier, Cummins said. Regarding the decision to leave out leg-spinner Adam Zampa, he explained that the conditions weren’t right for spin. We only bowled three overs of spin; the ball wasn’t gripping for us, so we chose to go without him, he mentioned.
Despite the heavy loss, Cummins emphasized the need to move forward. I’ll probably address whether we could have made different decisions, but I don’t want to dwell on it too much. We’re going back to a venue we know really well, he concluded.
In the match itself, SRH won the toss and decided to field first. This seemed to pay off as they quickly got Quinton de Kock and Sunil Narine out for low scores, reducing KKR to 16/2. However, a strong response from Rahane (38 off 27 balls) and Raghuvanshi (50 off 32 balls) turned things around. After they fell, Venkatesh Iyer (60 off 29 balls) and Rinku Singh (32* off 17 balls) led KKR to a total of 200/6 with a solid partnership.
For SRH, Mohammed Shami (1/29) and Harshal Patel (1/43) were the pick of the bowlers. During their run chase, SRH struggled and lost wickets quickly. Only Heinrich Klaasen (33 off 21 balls) and Kamindu Mendis (27 off 20 balls) managed to score more than 20 runs.
With this win, KKR is getting back on track with two wins and two losses, sitting in fifth place, while SRH is at the bottom with just one win and three losses.
