No place for Steyn for the moment, says Warner

 It’s very rare to see Dale Steyn warm the bench for reasons other than injury. But such has been Trent Boult’s form that the Sunrisers Hyderabad have been forced to overlook the South African pace ace who has been their finest performer with the ball in previous seasons.  

“You have to look at someone like Trent Boult,” said Sunisers’ skipper David Warner when asked about the continued exclusion of Steyn from the playing 11. Steyn had missed the match against Chennai Super Kings who had plundered over 200 runs in their opener and one expected Sunrisers include the Protean in their line-up.

“He is in fantastic form. Look at the World Cup,  he was the best bowler barring Mitchell Starc. The conditions suited him here (he picked up three wickets in the 19th over), and suited him in the last game (in Chennai). We just feel at the moment Trent is a bit ahead of Dale. We (will) definitely use Dale throughout the tournament, and (it) helps having Ravi (Bopara) and Moises (Henriques, who is yet to play a game) as international all-rounders,” he reasoned.

Warner was all praise for his bowlers who restricted the Royal Challengers Bangalore to 166 all out. “The bowling was really good, I felt,” he noted. “Early on, there was a bit of swing. Our opening bowlers bowled really well. It got away a little in the middle overs, but we brought it back. Karn Sharma bowled really well, Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar) bowled beautifully at the death. PK (Praveen Kumar) bowled really well and Ravi got a couple of wickets. Trent bowled short of a length, and we knew if we could get it up around the chest area, we could get some catches.”

Warner admitted that the RCB bowlers were erratic. “The way they bowled helped us to bat the way we did,” he pointed out. “To be honest, they didn’t bowl too well in the first few overs and that allowed us to gain momentum,” he added.