Need to forget this loss and move on: Bhuvneshwar Kumar

Heading into their season opener against Rajasthan Royals, Sunrisers Hyderabad were considered, at least on paper, to be a favorite to go deep in IPL 2023. But the 2016 champions received a rude awakening as on their home turf, the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, they were thrashed by 72 runs by RR, who steamrolled SRH without breaking a sweat.

Everything that could go wrong went wrong for Sunrisers as after conceding 203 with the ball, a horror showing with the bat saw them end their 20 overs with a score of 131/8. Incidentally, the contest was not too dissimilar to their first encounter last year, where they slipped to a 61-run defeat against the same opponents.

A far from ideal start, but stand-in skipper Bhuvneshwar Kumar believes his side needn’t panic, and have to ensure to move on from this defeat as quickly as possible.

“100 per cent we can say that, let's forget and move on,” Bhuvneshwar said post the game.

“We have to just work at it and move forward. We need to execute our plans and hopefully we will get better.”

The Sunrisers, on Sunday, were missing several key overseas players including their captain Aiden Markram, who a few thousand miles away smashed a sizzling 175 against Netherlands. And they were plagued by the absence of the big names as a middling showing saw them get completely outclassed by the SRH bowlers. 

But with both Markram and Klaasen set to be available from the next clash onwards, Bhuvneshwar believes Sunrisers’ batting will pick itself up in the coming games. 

“It is the first match of the season and there is a lot to improve. South Africans are coming back, our captain is coming back and we will be a much better batting unit,” Bhuvneshwar said.

He also reckoned there were a couple of positives from the encounter. 

“The last five-six overs in our bowling and Umran's knock at the end - they were a couple of positives.”

Historically, Hyderabad has tended to be a bowler-friendly venue but that wasn’t the case on Sunday as the track proved to be a batter’s paradise. Going forward, should SRH be worried if the tracks at home continue to play the same way? Bhuvneshwar doesn’t think so.

“It was a pretty good track and like what we get in Hyderabad. We can prepare whatever we want (in terms of the pitch) but we are not too worried about that.”

SRH have a four-day break, post which they take on Lucknow at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium on Friday, April 7.