IPL 2024: At Sunrisers, the aim has been to be aggressive and take control of the Powerplay, says Travis Head
The HinduStrategy is the name of the game in the Indian Premier League, and Sunrisers Hyderabad seems to have found a new template to make the most of the Powerplay. It’s not gonna come off every single game, and you need to take risks,” Head said, drawing reference to its fixture against Punjab Kings, where Kagiso Rabada started off the proceedings brilliantly, forcing him and Abhishek to rotate strike and put the pressure back on the opponent. It’s the same sort of approach - you have to go as hard as you can because you’ve got batters behind you and you need to maximise it as much as you can because you’ve got so much power in the batting line up…” However, Head agrees that it’s a bit different in domestic cricket. “You see that in the big bash in Australia where we don’t have the Impact Player, where your top-four batters - the strongest of guys and a lot of them from the Australian team - open the batting and try to bat the whole 20 overs and if you get to sort of six, seven or eight you feel like you’re on top but here in the IPL, some of the best hitters at the moment come in at No.6 or No.7. Being among the high-profile exclusions from Cricket Australia’s contract list for 2021-2022, Head eventually got back into the grades and his World Cup heroics added gloss to his resume.