IPL 2023: Brian Lara opens up on SRH’s poor form this season

Legendary West Indies batter and the current head coach of the Sunrisers Hyderabad, Brian Lara, has stated that he has not been able to grip with emotions that are often attached to the Indian Premier League. Notably, after their defeat at the hands of Gujarat Titans, at the Narendra Modi Stadium, on May 15, the Aiden Markram-led side is out of the qualification race. Talking about their season, Lara defended himself by saying that it was only his first year as the coach of an IPL team.

Furthermore, Lara added that it has been quite difficult for them to travel to different venues and understand the conditions. The 54-year-old meanwhile mentioned that he expects the players to correct their mistakes in the next edition of the tournament and return as better cricketers. Therefore, getting things right in all aspects of the game is quite a task in itself.

“First of all, it’s my first year (as head coach of an IPL side),” Lara was quoted as saying by the NDTV.

“Not getting to grips with the emotions of going through an IPL season, especially when we were back to travelling to different venues and finding out different surfaces. Our last year was based on 3-4 venues (due to Covid-19 and bio-bubble environment), so there is a huge difference in that. As a coach, an appreciation of how much you have to pay attention to what’s going on is a meticulous task to get things right continuously,” he added.

As a unit, we were unable to match up to what was expected: Lara

Speaking about the team’s performance so far in the competition, Brian Lara mentioned that players like Rahul Tripathi and Abhishek Sharma couldn’t make much of an impact this season as they did in 2022. Additionally, Lara also iterated that they have a good squad on paper but the players couldn’t really live up to the expectations.

“The likes of Rahul Tripathi or Abhishek Sharma, who scored runs last year in excess of 400 (each) find themselves struggling a bit this year. But it’s not just one or two players, it’s not just the Indian players. I feel that, as a unit, we were unable to match up to what was expected. If you look on paper I would think that this is a respectable batting lineup and we just weren’t able to come to the party enough times,” the legendary West Indian concluded.