Hyderabad, May 7, 2026
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) assistant coach James Franklin credited skipper Pat Cummins’ tactical nous of bluffing Priyansh Arya and the execution of the detailed planning by the bowling group for playing a vital hand in their 33-run win over Punjab Kings.
At the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Cummins set the tone in the powerplay by bluffing Arya with a bouncer outside off‑stump, with an aim to exploit the batter’s preference for the pull over the upper cut. Arya duly fell into the trap by pulling straight to Eshan Malinga at deep square leg. Cummins’ spell of 2-34 eventually played a decisive hand in SRH going to top spot in the points table.
“I think it was a little bit pre-planned. Obviously the bowlers do a lot of work with Varun Aaron, our bowling coach, pre-games and I think sometimes you don’t necessarily have to quite bowl the ball that maybe the field is expecting.
“I think we saw the ball before that he bowled with a pretty good bounce on the same sort of line and he obviously called the bluff a little bit, executed the same sort of delivery and created the opportunity.
“So, where the strengths and weaknesses are of the opposition batters, obviously all our bowlers are well across it and Pat was able to expose that and create an opportunity and we obviously got that first breakthrough,” said Franklin in the post-match press conference.
He added that feedback from SRH’s batters after the first innings shaped the bowling plans. “I think we found from the feedback from our batters, particularly from the first innings was. As the innings went on, they found that the pitch was slowing down quite a lot and they found that when the Punjab bowlers were bowling off pace cutters into the wicket, it was a little bit harder to hit.
“So that was the feedback that our bowling group got and obviously we used it a lot throughout that innings when we bowled. So, particularly when you bat first in games, how you then try and execute your bowling plans has a lot to do with obviously the batting feedback on how the pitch is playing so we use that advantage from batting first today to implement into our bowling innings.
Franklin highlighted the role of detailed planning SRH bowlers do in stopping opposition batters from making big runs. “Again I’m not privy to too much of the in-depth bowling chats because I’m sort of looking after a slightly different space within the group.
“But all I’ll say is that the detail that Varun goes through with the bowling group in conjunction obviously with Pat Cummins and Dan, the head coach, are very detailed and I think you have to be detailed nowadays because of how powerful batting units are, particularly top threes, top fours of all the IPL teams and particularly the power plays.
“So the plans that obviously were put in place and obviously that subtle adjustment from what the batting feedback was, it worked out for us in the power play by creating a couple of early opportunities, getting their dangerous openers out in the first couple of overs and then obviously backing that up a couple of overs later with getting Shreyas out early just meant that we obviously got a good footing in the door in terms of the game.
“But on the same note we know as well that a team like Punjab do bat deep and obviously Cooper batted fantastically well for his first IPL 100 which I’m sure he’ll be proud of. But our bowling group, I think their execution as a whole group right throughout the 20 overs of us bowling was pretty spot on for what the conditions in the game needed,” he concluded.(Agency)
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