SunRisers Hyderabad head coach Trevor Bayliss backed the on-filed umpire decision on Harshal Patel's second over the waist height no-ball in their six-run defeat against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Wednesday. In the final over of the innings, defending 16 runs, Patel bowled over the waist height full toss to Rashid Khan. However, he managed to get the boundary off it but the umpire called it the no-ball. This was the second full toss no-ball from Patel as he bowled one in his previous over too.
An animated David Warner was seen gesturing in the dugout, wondering why Patel wasn't taken out of the attack given his second offence. But the pacer was not taken out of the attack because the first no-ball was not bowled at the batsman, and he, therefore, hadn't received any warning for it.
"He was a little animated because we weren't playing very good cricket and we lost. I think the umpires got it right. There was a bit of conjecture over obviously the second high no-ball, but the first one was not directed at the batter's body, so that wasn't a warning. So I think the umpires got that one right," Bayliss said while replying to an ANI query during the virtual post-match press conference.
Talking about Kane Williamson's fitness, Bayliss said, "Kane Williamson is out having a bit of a run now. He trained on one of the days - we had two days' practice before this game and he practised on one of those days so he's coming along."
Bayliss further mentioned that spinner Mohammad Nabi has not recovered from the blow he sustained during their last match against Kolkata Knight Riders and that's why Jason Holder replaced him in the playing XI against RCB.
"Nabi, when he got hit the other day in the first match, he's feeling the effects of that hit for a couple of days after that. So he was deemed unfit. He had a bit of a headache and a heavy head. That allowed us to play Jason, and from the pace-bowling point of view he gave us a point of difference with a little bit of height and bounce," he said.
Bayliss admitted that poor batting in the final half of the game resulted in the defeat as they bowled well and restricted RCB under 150.
"Obviously, when you keep a team down to under 150, you would like to think you are going to win more times than you lose. But our batting in that last third of the match was fairly poor. There was some good bowling, obviously. But we should have countered the pressure by playing some good strong cricket shots and taking the ones and twos and putting the pressure back on the opposition," he said.
"We tried to get the game done and over within a short space of time. In T20 cricket, you have always got a little bit of more time than you really think. If you look at the end result, we lost by six or seven runs. If we hadn't lost out better batters in that over, where we lost three wickets, it might have been a different story. It wasn't, so we have got to go away and regroup. Stay nice and positive and move on to the next match," Bayliss added.
SRH will next lock horns with Mumbai Indians here at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Saturday.