Pune Warriors India coach Geoff Marsh has expressed his disappointment over his batsmen’s unimpressive performance in a critical Indian Premier League game against Chennai Super Kings on Wednesday.
The defending champions thrashed the Warriors comprehensively by 8 wickets at the PSA stadium in Mumbai. After electing to bat first, the Pune side could only manage to score 141 for 6 in 20 overs. The total did not prove enough in the end as the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Chennai side achieved the target convincingly with 3 balls to spare.
Marsh feels that captain Yuvraj Singh’s thrilling knock of 62 from just 43 balls gave the Warriors some hope but the rest of the batting line-up let the team down.
“I’m terribly disappointed with our batting on a good wicket. Our batsmen are not putting up enough total for our bowlers to defend. We were 20-30 runs short on a wicket where 160-170 was the par score,” Marsh said.
It was Pune’s second defeat at the hands of CSK in the ongoing tournament. With four consecutive humiliating losses, Pune Warriors are now just one step ahead of Delhi Daredevils, who are at the bottom of the IPL standings.
The Warriors have lost a couple of their key players including Graeme Smith and Ashish Nehra due to injury concerns. The absence of Sri Lankan all-rounder Angelo Matthews has also hurt the team combination.
Although Marsh cited injuries as a huge setback for the side, the coach made it clear that the team has enough talent in its ranks to do well against any side in the competition.
The coach further described that the team has not been able to take a good start in the last few games which is one of prime reasons of their successive defeats.
“We lost a lot of wickets early. With four to six [batsmen] down, the least we can’t afford to do is to lose more wickets. You don’t want to be bowled out. With a poor start like this, you put a lot of pressure on the middle order,” the former Australian opener added.
Marsh, however, hoped Warriors to return to winning ways and make it to the knockout stage of the competition. He also expected that his players would not repeat their previous mistakes in the upcoming games.
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