Legendary West Indian Brian Lara has conceded that he was not able to come to "grips" with the rigors and emotions of the tournament in his first year as Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach as the franchise once again made an early exit from the IPL. 

Hyderabad which is already out of the race in the ongoing IPL still has two more matches left. West Indian great explained, "First of all, it is my first year as head coach of an IPL side," Lara indicated understanding the nitty-gritty in his first year of being the chief coach of a T20 side was difficult.

The 54-year-old Lara added, "Not getting to grips with the emotions of going through an IPL season, especially when we were back to travelling to different venues and finding out different surfaces. Our last year was based on 3-4 venues (due to Covid-19 and bio-bubble environment), so there is a huge difference in that," he added.

"As a coach, an appreciation of how much you have to pay attention to what's going on is a meticulous task to get things right continuously," Lara said, hoping that the players correct their "mistakes" next season and emerge "much better cricketers".

Lara further said they had a "respectable batting unit" but their batters were not able to come to the party. SRH had relied heavily on Rahul Tripathi and Abhishek Sharma in batting, but the duo came a cropper this season. Tripathi, who scored 413 last season made 258 runs from 12 matches this time. Sharma, who scored 426 runs in 2022, scored 215 from 10 matches. 

"The likes of Rahul Tripathi or Abhishek Sharma, who scored runs last year in excess of 400 (each) find themselves struggling a bit this year. 

The franchise also has drawn flak for not giving enough opportunity to their tear away pacer Umran Malik. Malik, who grabbed 12 wickets last season, has played just seven matches this time and returned with five scalps. Lara revealed they had expectations on Malik but that did not click.