SRH likely to wait and watch on Saha groin niggle

Wriddhiman Saha’s groin injury is “not serious” but his IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad is expected to adopt a cautious approach after consultation with the BCCI’s medical team as the senior wicketkeeperbatsman is Australia-bound after the T20 event. Saha had picked up the niggle during his match-winning innings of 87 off 45 balls against Delhi Capitals on Tuesday and didn’t keep wickets with substitute Shreevats Goswami replacing him.

“Unfortunately, he’s got a little groin niggle but hopefully it isn’t too bad,” SRH skipper Warner said at the post-match presentation ceremony. Saha is part of India’s Test team which will play four games starting mid-December during the tour, which begins next month.

A senior BCCI source said that all the franchises have been told to be a bit cautious with regards to fitness of national team players. “It doesn’t look very serious at the moment but there is a three-day gap before Sunrisers’ next game (vs RCB on October 31). Let’s keep our fingers crossed,” the official said.

There is a possibility that Saha may be advised to skip the next two games and in case Sunrisers make it to play-offs, he would be fully fit. During an IPLT20.com interview with star spinner Rashid Khan, Saha said that he would “hopefully” soon recover from injury. It was on skipper Warner’s insistence that Saha took chances during the Powerplay overs. In all, he hit 12 fours and two sixes. “I asked David how should I approach this innings and he told me that you should just bat freely. We needed to take chances in the first six overs and since it clicked, we got the momentum going our way,” Saha told Rashid during the interview.

“Once David started striking cleanly, I took a back-seat and watched him strike it cleanly. Once David was dismissed, I again took over and converted the boundaries when the ball was pitched in my hitting areas.”

Going with clear mind my biggest strength: Rashid Sunrisers Hyderabad leg-spinner Rashid Khan says a clear mind is his biggest strength and he reaped the rewards for focusing on bowling more dot balls against Delhi Capitals in their IPL match here. Rashid returned with incredible figures of 4-0-7-3 to make a significant contribution in Sunrisers’ win.

“I just go with a clear mind, that’s my biggest strength. I want to bowl a good line and length, no matter the situation. You have to mix up and play with the batsman’s mind, and see the weak zone and strong zone...So I keep those things in mind,” Rashid said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

The Afghan bowled 17 dot balls in his four-over quota.

“Winning the game was the most important. The wicket was helping a lot. What I’m mainly focusing on is to bowl economically, whether I get wickets or not. Dot balls help me to get wickets and it also helps the other end to get wickets,” he said. “Warner has done a good job for us so far in this whole tournament, it is all about the requirement of the game, sometimes you have to be aggressive, sometimes you have to be defending.

Scores: SRH 219/2 (W Saha 87, D Warner 66, M Pandey 44*). DC 131 in 19 ovs (R Pant 36; R Khan 3/7, S Sharma 2/27, T Natarajan 2/26).

SRH won by 88 runs.