CHENNAI: Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner was all praise for youngsters Priyam Garg, who scored his maiden IPL half-century, and Abhishek Sharma, who rescued his team from a tricky position against Chennai Super Kings. Hyderabad eventually won the match by seven runs on Friday.
"The hardest thing is, if you're playing a tournament where you're only getting three or four overs to have a hit, it's very difficult to get any momentum. It's going to be difficult to find the boundaries when you're not getting too much game exposure. Hopefully, this year shows these kids what they're capable of. They went out there and executed their skill, they got some time in the middle, now we know what they're capable of," said Warner.
With Jonny Bairstow, Warner and Kane Williamson, Hyderbad look solid at the top. However, the same can't be said of the middle-order which is quite inexperienced.
"We had no choice. Who else are we going to bat at the end? I've said this before that I've told these young kids to go out there and play the way they want to play with freedom, take the scoreboard out of the equation, and back yourselves. If you give youngsters almost 11 overs to bat, you know they're going to
get some time out in the middle," explained Warner.
The Australian also heaped praise on Tamil Nadu's left-arm pacer T Natarajan, who has done well at the death so far. "In the warm-up games, he executed well. We were looking for a death bowler, he fitted that mould. He has been bowling really well and we back him and support him. He delivers. I am really proud of him."