Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) were demolished by the Gujarat Titans (GT) quicks in their IPL 2026 contest in Ahmedabad on Tuesday, but not only did they stay at No. 3 on the points table at the end of it, there was enough for them to take away despite the 82-run loss chasing only 169.

“We were satisfied at the halfway mark,” SRH head coach Daniel Vettori said in the press conference after the game, while Sanjay Bangar called SRH’s bowling plans “exceptional”. It’s just that GT’s pace pack was unstoppable on the day: Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Jason Holder and Prasidh Krishna returned 9 for 82 between them from 14 overs. The SRH innings only lasted 14.5 overs.

“We knew coming up against their bowling line-up and the fact that they had five seamers [Arshad Khan was the fifth, but didn’t get to bowl] plus Rashid [Khan] was always going to be a challenge,” Vettori said. “We didn’t get the start we wanted and they were able to capitalise the whole way through and their bowling was brilliant.”

But SRH’s own bowling was quite outstanding too. Pat Cummins and Praful Hinge went at under six runs an over through their seven overs; Hinge and Sakib Hussain picked up two wickets each; Eshan Malinga, one of their star performers this season, was expensive at 11.50, but keeping GT to 168 for 5 was a solid effort.

“There were some exceptional bowling plans, starting from how they bowled to [B] Sai Sudharsan, bowling that leg-stump line and not giving him anything to score off – this is the first time that I have seen him score [so few] runs behind point on the off side [he scored just 13 of his 61 in that region],” Bangar said on ESPNcricinfo TimeOut. “Even to Nishant Sindhu, you saw that the third man was very fine and they attempted the bouncer. Pat Cummins taking the mid-on fielder back – now this is something which generally doesn’t happen against high-quality fast bowlers, where they are happy to get that mid-off up and push long on back.”

Ambati Rayudu agreed with Bangar, and also pointed to the lack of slower balls in the early part of the GT innings.

“They just didn’t go to the slower ball very early – like how generally they do in other grounds – they bowled seam-up for quite a bit,” Rayudu said. “That was quite effective on this kind of a surface and they bowled slower once the ball got a little old. They played the conditions really, really well.”

Hinge got the two big wickets in the powerplay: Shubman Gill gone for 5 and Jos Buttler for 7. Sai Sudharsan, who batted till the 17th over, was largely kept in check too, his 61 taking 44 balls, and it was only Washington Sundar’s 33-ball 50 was a quick innings.

“I think you reflect on the fact that we’ve done well to restrict them, obviously those two big wickets of Shubman and Jos in the powerplay set us up to be able to limit them. But we are under no illusions around the way that they’ve been playing, and on that surface. We knew we needed to get off to a good start and that’s what we weren’t able to do,” Vettori said about losing four wickets inside the powerplay, including those of Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan.

“If they had scored 200, then we knew it would have been an incredibly difficult task. But I think the fact that [the target] was 169, we thought we had a chance. I don’t put any blame on the batting unit – they’ve been exceptional this year.

“Every team throughout the IPL is going to have their small blips once in a while and ours was tonight. But I don’t see any reason why we won’t bounce back.”