Coach Moody upbeat about SRH chances

 As has been the case over the last few years, there is a mad rush to the play-offs with more than four teams in contention for four play-off places. Tom Moody, the coach of Sunrisers Hyderabad, who are also involved in the tense race, said the best way to deal with the pressure is to stay focussed on one’s job.

“I think the players are pretty well conditioned to the pressures of the IPL,” Moody said at the pre-match press conference here on Thursday. “At every edition it has been tense, especially the last couple of games. Even last year, a number of teams could have found themselves in the top four. It’s up to me and the rest of the support staff to make sure they concentrate only on the next game and not look too far or keep worrying about other results.

“You can easily fall into the trap, like if this team loses then we need to do only this. We will leave that to the supporters. We’ve got two games at home and we want to win them,” added the Australian.

The Royal Challengers have never beaten Sunrisers at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium and Moody said his wards would be keen to extend that streak. “RCB are a fantastic batting side and they look far more dangerous after they’ve made the adjustment to the batting order. But, like you’ll saw against Kings XI Punjab, they too can falter. We’ve played well against RCB in the past at home and we want to continue the same tomorrow night.”

Moody also rubbished talks that Sunrisers are way too reliant on skipper David Warner, saying his team has got lot of match winners. “Eoin Morgan has played well too. There’s has been a lot of talk that Sunrisers do not bat deep but we’ve shown in at least five games that SRH is not a one-man show.

Henriques has made a match-winning contribution, Morgan has made a match-winning contribution, KL Rahul has stepped in. Ashish Reddy made a quick 20 the other night. Everyone plays a role in the team. Yes, we’ve got a couple of star players. David Warner has got the Orange Cap which is great and he would want to keep them.”