Bengaluru, March 29 Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Daniel Vettori described his team's bowling performance against Royal Challengers Bengaluru as "poor," conceding that they gave Devdutt Padikkal and Virat Kohli far too many scoring opportunities in the IPL opener here.
After scoring 201 for 9 in the season-opener on Saturday, the Hyderabad side could not contain the aggressive Padikkal and Kohli, watching RCB win comfortably in just 15.4 overs.
"You need to start well (with the ball), which we did against (Phil) Salt, but I think we weren't at our best with the ball. We weren't as disciplined as we needed to be, and we gave a lot of scoring opportunities to Virat and Padikkal, who played exceptionally well," Vettori said in the post-match press conference.
"We should have been able to maintain more discipline after taking that important wicket of Salt. So, it was a very good batting performance by RCB and one of our poorer bowling performances," he added.
Vettori said SRH had observed how well RCB pacer Jacob Duffy bowled, but the visiting bowlers were unable to implement their plans effectively.
"I think we learned a lot from how RCB bowled and what was effective and what wasn't, but we just weren't able to implement that. You don't want to have a rusty performance because every game in the IPL is so important, especially how to start.
"But today was one of our challenging bowling days. We saw at the end when we started to return to our usual disciplines that we could actually be effective and take some wickets. But I think we just missed our lengths too much. Duffy, in particular, showed the length to bowl on that surface," he said.
Vettori hoped that young bowlers such as left-arm pacer David Payne and left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey would perform well in the coming matches.
The Hyderabad side managed to score 200, but on a flat Chinnaswamy surface, the total was inadequate, and Vettori admitted as much.
"I think 200, maybe a couple of years ago, you would think that's safe, but I think we understand where the game has gone and how destructive that RCB batting line-up is."
Indirectly, the Kiwi was hinting that he was expecting a lot more from SRH's top order, comprising Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Heinrich Klaasen.
While Kishan and Klaasen played useful knocks, both the SRH openers fell cheaply, putting pressure on the middle order.
However, Vettori said he still has a lot of trust in his batting lineup.
"We have a lot of trust in our batting unit. You see Aniket (Verma) coming in at seven and still being able to be aggressive and put us in a position where we have a chance of defending. I think the fact that we don't expect Abhi and Trav to do it every game, we expect them to do it, win a couple of games a season, and we hand that off to the entire batting unit.
"So that top seven is incredibly impressive, and even after that tough start to get to 200 shows the calibre of that group. I think they just have confidence that they can go out there and play that style, and they understand that we need big scores because of the nature of the IPL these days," he noted.
Vettori said England all-rounder Brydon Carse was hit on his hand while batting in nets, but is recovering well.
"He got hit on the hand in the nets when he was batting, on his bowling hand, and there was no break, but quite a lot of swelling, and he tried to play in the game, but it was difficult for him to hold the ball.
"So he's been improving, so we're hoping he's available for selection for Kolkata," he added.