'SRH will hit 400 against their own attack': Hyderabad bowlers torn apart after poor start to IPL

Former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen came down heavily on Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) bowling, claiming that the Orange Army would have scored 400 had they faced their own bowling lineup. Referring to SRH's bowling effort in their first match of the season against defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru, the former England batter said, "Sunrisers Hyderabad, the bowling display from them a couple of nights ago (against RCB) was some of the worst bowling I've seen in IPL." "So, I mean, if SRH had faced their bowlers that night, I think they would have scored 400," Pietersen said in an interview with Beer Biceps. In their match against RCB on March 28, which was also the first match of the IPL 2026, SRH had scored 201 runs in the first innings. However, RCB chased down the target in just 15.4 overs with Virat Kohli (69 off 38) and Devdutt Padikkal (61 off 26) leading the charge. SRH used six bowlers in the second innings but none of them could stop the runs with four of them having an economy of above 11 runs per over.SRH later won their second match of the season, against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), by a huge margin of 65 runs. However, they lost to Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on Sunday by five wickets in what was a last-over thriller. Stand-in captain Ishan Kishan pointed to the loss of wickets early in their batting innings as one of the causes of their five-wicket loss to LSG. "It was a good game, total not enough. Bowlers bowled to the plan, credit to the fielders too but one or two boundaries can take the match here and there. Losing four wickets early puts pressure on other batters, but credit to Klaasy and Nitish for taking us past 150. Rishabh played well when they were losing wickets. Defending that total was tough, but taking it to the last over gives us positive notes. Harsh bowled exceptionally well, hope he'll continue," the SRH captain said.With one win in three matches, the 2016 IPL champions currently sit at number 5 in the points table. SRH will next face last season's runner-up Punjab Kings, on April 11 in New Chandigarh.