Sunrisers batsmen have to take responsibility: White

Jaipur, April 28 (IANS) Sunrisers Hyderabad's stop-gap captain Cameroon White feels that his batsmen need to step up and take responsibility as individuals with the bat and make sure that they put up some better scores for their bowlers to defend.

Sunrisers suffered a batting collapse here Saturday as Rajasthan Royals won the match by eight wickets at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.

Sunrisers were left reeling at 19/5 at one stage but they managed to put on a target of 144 after a great fightback by lower order batsmen.

Asked what went wrong, White said: "There was a bit of swing early on. I think initially they bowled well up front."

However, Darren Sammy faced all odds, stood firm and made 60 runs to revive their inning.

White was all praise for Sammy. "It was a great innings, wasn't it. After that start it was a really good batting effort by the tail to get to 140-odd," White told IPLT20.com

"Darren Sammy was excellent again and he was well supported by Mishy (Amit Mishra) and Ashish Reddy as well so that was good," he added.

Despite having one of the best bowling attacks, Sunrisers were hapless during the match and failed to defend their total.

"Yes, we think we needed to get some early wickets. We had got one and it would have been nice to get a couple more but that did not happen. Shane Watson batted unbelievably well and Rahul (Dravid) played well up front. So the credit has to go to Shane and Rahul," he said.

However, White gave credit to their bowlers.

"The bowlers have done a great job led by our bowling coach Waqar Younis, who is doing fantastically well. Dale Steyn is leading our attack, backed up by our two leg-spinners as well. Mishy has been great and Karan (Sharma) has been excellent too," he said.