IPL 2018: We are fortunate with our bowling depth, says Kane Williamson

SRH successfully defended a target of 133 against Kings XI Punjab. (Source: IPL)

Sunrisers Hyderabad once again served a timely reminder of their terrific bowling unit to all other teams in the Indian Premier League after successfully defending a target of 133 against Kings XI Punjab on Thursday. On a sluggish track,after winning the toss KXIP opted to bowl first and restricted SRH to 132/6. However, defending the total, Kane Williamson’s bowlers delivered a thoroughly professional performance to bowl out KXIP for 119 to win the match by 13 runs. Leg-spinner Rashid Khan was the pick of the bowlers, as he picked up three wickets for just 19 runs.

Expressing satisfaction over the performance of his bowlers, a visibly pleased Williamson said, “It’s about getting 145s and 155s on these kind of surfaces. The bowlers have been operating very well, they know their roles very well. We are fortunate with our bowling depth. Very lucky to have the local talent. Some good tough decisions to make going into the next few matches. You always want more, but the boys have been fantastic in the way they fought with the ball especially on this kind of a pitch. We want to maintain the same trend for the rest of the tournament,”

However, the Kiwi skipper was critical of his bowlers and urgedthemn to perform better in the upcoming matches. “We haven’t really played on surfaces that are 180s and 190s. We wanted more from our batters, and today 150-160 would have been a competitive total. The Kings XI bowled really, really well, but the boys fought really hard. It’s nice to be able to defend these totals. We didn’t bowl well in the powerplay, but we did well to squeeze it towards the end. We want to be a little bit smarter with the bat,” he concluded by saying.