'There are times when you have to rejig your attitude' but SRH haven't done that

Not for the first time in IPL 2025, the "where's plan B" question has been asked of the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) batting.

"At the moment, it's all or nothing," Nick Knight said after SRH's latest loss, to Mumbai Indians (MI) at home. The margin was seven wickets with 26 balls in hand, but the outcome was evident by the ninth over of the match when SRH, asked to bat first, were 35 for 5. Despite the situation, plan B came later when Heinrich Klaasen and Abhinav Manohar added 99 runs for the sixth wicket.

"If you see the way some batters have batted, they are just following the same pattern," Varun Aaron said on ESPNcricinfo's Time Out show. "Yes, you can hit a few shots along the ground, you don't have to hit everything in the air; a four is a good shot, but if you're going to hit everything in the air, you're going to get out more often than not. Especially when the wickets are like this, when they are slowing down towards the back end."

But that's the formula that worked for SRH the previous season, when they broke existing IPL batting records and went all the way to the final, where they lost to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).

Knight attempted to provide that perspective. "These discussions have got to be a little bit careful. It's not like you can put [a] one-size-fits-all [answer] here. You can't say Gujarat Titans [GT] are the best, they are doing it this way and everyone's got to follow," Knight said. "What Gujarat Titans are doing best is that they are using their resources the best. Their type of players play like that. It suits their style. When you look at Abhishek [Sharma] and Travis Head, I don't want to see them hitting [along] the ground. I am more than happy to see them hitting aerially. Because that's what they do, that's what they do well.

"What I am slightly concerned with about SRH is when that doesn't work and you find yourself two-down quickly, that's when you've got to move it back for a little while. That's when you've got to reassess it a little bit, you've got to say, 'okay, that's perhaps not working, we will try plan B for a bit and then go back to plan A'. It's got to be a bit [balanced]. At the moment, it's all or nothing. There are times when you have to rejig your attitude, the approach a little bit, and then get back on it."

Daniel Vettori, the SRH coach, acknowledged that, and also said that plan B was exactly what SRH had attempted to turn to once the early wicket fell.

"We wanted to bowl first," he said at the press conference after the game, but, after losing two wickets inside three overs, "the assessment was that it was not the 250-260 wicket it has been the last couple of games". "Once we realised that the surface wasn't what we had anticipated, then we needed to build towards that 180 score. Unfortunately, it's difficult to do when you're 24 for 4 after the powerplay."

Knight agreed. "If you're four down for 13, it's game over. I wonder if when you're two down, whether you can just hold it back a little bit, have a partnership there with Klaasen or someone, then you don't need Abhinav [Manohar] as your Impact Sub, then you can use an extra bowler, then you might be able to get an earlier partnership. Those sorts of little things can play out in important moments in your game."

As things stand, SRH are down at No. 9, only above Chennai Super Kings (CSK), with six games left to play in the league stage. They aren't out of contention yet, but it's not looking bright.

"There's been a lot of teams that find themselves in this situation, and there's been a few teams that were able to resurrect their seasons [in the past]," Vettori said, holding out hope. "You look back to RCB last year after a difficult start. So if we can take inspiration from a team like them, and Mumbai's done it on a few occasions, but ultimately, it's just going to take one performance, and we haven't been able to put a collective performance bar the two games we've won. We've got to improve dramatically in all three facets."

The next opportunity to do that will come on Friday night, when they play the only team that's worse off than them, CSK, in Chennai.