Veteran India player Piyush Chawla wants SunRisers Hyderabad to drop their captain Kane Williamson for the rest of IPL 2022 because of his poor form. He expressed his disappointment that Williamson “keeps wasting deliveries” which puts pressure on his opening partner Abhishek Sharma and the rest of the team as well. Williamson has amassed 208 runs from 12 games this season. He has averaged 18.91 and his strike rate was just 92.86.
Piyush Chawla told ESPNcricinfo: “Whenever they’ve gone for 180+ scores, the batting has looked clueless. A major reason for that is the opening partnership. When you are chasing 180+, the opening partnership is very important. Here, Abhishek Sharma is batting really well but he isn’t getting the support of Kane Williamson. He tries to play the big shots by Kane Williamson takes up so many deliveries – he doesn’t get out and keeps wasting deliveries.”
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The veteran also added that the SunRisers should make changes when they still have a mathematical chance to qualify and hope that other players coming in will show better intent.
Chawla said: “There comes a time when you think ‘Yes we made him the captain but it’s high time we made a change.’ Because you won’t get any more opportunities now and you still have a mathematical chance to qualify. If a batter is completely out of form, you can give him a break and bring in someone else in his place. It’s possible that the new batter will be in a different form because Kane Williamson is looking completely off-color.”
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“See, [Aiden] Markram is driving the game brilliantly in the middle overs so I don’t think there’a any need to flirt with his batting spot. If you talk about Rahul Tripathi, you can play him as an opener, he has done that many times before and is a top-order batter as well. You can then bring another overseas batter at No. 3 or in the middle-order. It won’t be the first time that an overseas captain will give himself a break. A few years ago Sangakkara did it as well. Kane Williamson is a batter of similar quality, so sometimes when form isn’t going your way, you should have no qualms in taking a break,” Piyush Chawla concluded.
