Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have been breaking records with their ultra-aggressive batting, and their captain Pat Cummins and coach Daniel Vettori said the team wasn't planning to change the approach. But Cheteshwar Pujara and Ian Bishop believe the side should have a Plan B, with Pujara saying SRH weren't "smart" with their batting approach in their loss against Delhi Capitals on Sunday.
"Firstly I was really surprised they chose to bat first," Pujara said on ESPNcricinfo's TimeOut show. "When you're playing an afternoon game, you know that the pitch will be slightly on the slow side, that's when you normally prefer to bowl and that's an ideal time to bowl, not an ideal time to bat. I thought they should have bowled first. But talking about their batting, I think they go too hard and they were not smart enough today."
SRH lost their top four in the powerplay and were reeling at 37 for 4 after Mitchell Starc's menacing spell, but the scoring rate never went down despite that. Aniket Verma slammed a 41-ball 74, hitting five fours and six sixes in his innings, twinning with Heinrich Klaasen during a 77-run stand off just 40 balls to lift the team. With SRH's lower order put to the test by DC's spinners, they could only get to 163.
Bishop felt the experienced Klaasen should have batted a 'bit deeper' given Aniket was more in flow. He felt SRH could still stick to their approach but have a single player take more time to settle in instead of going hard from the start despite wickets falling rapidly.
"... those are experiences that I hope they will be learning, even Pat Cummins who says 'keep going hard', as they go through the season," Bishop said. "I look at Klaasen's dismissal, I think even Heinrich should know his power and if he was to stay and bat a little bit deeper, he will score at a huge tempo. It's still early in the season, but they [SRH] have got to start understanding that if Aniket gets going, we can spend some time there with him as deep as we bat and just soak it up just a little bit more.
"It's not to consolidate for five-six overs, but it's just maybe to manage for about three, four, five bowls, maybe even an over, we're not talking consolidation for long period."
Pujara questioned the point of the aggressive approach especially if results aren't going SRH's way. After starting the season in their typical style by defending a mammoth total of 287, SRH slumped to defeats in the next two games.
"What is your success then," Pujara said. "If you are just winning two out of 10, then it doesn't make sense. You need to win more number of games. You need to show that consistency again and again. Last season we saw that they played brilliantly throughout the league phase but what if one game goes wrong for you in the knockouts, then you're not able you are not able to have a plan."