IPL 2022 LIVE: Great to See Bhuvneshwar, Natarajan ‘Back to Fitness’, Says Tom Moody

IPL 2022 LIVE: Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) head coach Tom Moody has said it is “great” to see bowlers T. Natarajan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar “back to full fitness”.

Moody’s comments came after SRH’s latest defeat to Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Monday. While highlighting SRH’s positives in their defeat, which was their second loss in as many games, Moody mentioned the bowlers. Both Natarajan and Bhuvneshwar have had their ample share of injury concerns over the last year or so.

“Yeah look it was great to see Bhuvi [Bhuvneshwar] and Natu [Natrajan] back to full fitness. And also firing the way they are. They both executed their skills really well today. Gave ourselves a chance to chase down a total that we very thought was very getable, and we found ourselves in a position where we should’ve chased that total down, but unfortunately, we just didn’t finish as well as we would have liked,” Moody said.

Natarajan was sidelined after last year’s IPL until he returned to play the Syed Mushtaq Trophy Ali Trophy for Tamil Nadu. Soon after that, the Salem bowler was once again ruled out with a knee injury. On Monday, Natarajan finished with impressive figures of 2 for 26 in four overs, including dismissing LSG captain KL Rahul.

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In SRH’s opening encounter in the IPL 2022, which was against Rajasthan Royals (RR), Natarajan had picked up two wickets. But his dismissals came quite late as RR put up over 200 runs in the first innings. The medium-pacer dismissed Shimron Hetymer and Riyan Parag in the last over of RR’s innings.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar, meanwhile, has had persistent back issues. Last year, he suffered a muscle injury during the IPL. Despite that Bhuvneshwar was picked in the Indian squad for the T20 World Cup. He played in the first game, which was against Pakistan, but bowled just three overs. The UP fast bowler then went on to miss India’s subsequent tour of Australia.

Against LSG on Monday, Bhuvneshwar showed positive signs of impressive pace and movements. Even though he did not take a wicket, he gave away just 25 runs in four overs.

IPL 2022 LIVE: Tom Moody plays down batting concerns

On being questioned regarding SRH’s batting, Moody rubbished it, saying he thought their batting was a “considerable improvement” from the first game. SRH’s openers Abhishek Sharma and Kane Williamson have both struggled to get going. Abhishek and Kane have registered scores of 9, 2 in the first game, and 13 and 16 in the second game respectively.

SRH’s next game in IPL 2022 is on Saturday (April 9) against defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK). Both SRH and CSK are yet to register a win in the ongoing tournament. For more IPL betting tips and match guides from the experts, read here.