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Sunrisers Hyderabad's batting coach Hemang Badani said Abdul Samad redeemed himself with a match-winning cameo against Rajasthan Royals as past failures were 'hurting' the Jammu and Kashmir batter.
The 21-year-old has been with SRH since the 2020 season but has failed to live up to expectations. However, he repaid the faith against Royals on Sunday with a seven-ball 17 in SRH's chase of 215.
SRH needed four runs off the final ball of the game and Samad smashed Sandeep Sharma's free hit delivery for a straight six, having being caught off a no-ball the previous delivery.
Glenn Phillips had brought back SRH in the game with a seven-ball 25.
The win keeps SRH's slim hopes alive of making it to the play-offs.
"It is a great win for us because it gives us momentum. A few games could have been a different for us, especially the last game against KKR in which we needed 9 off the last over. We could not finish that. Also the game against Delhi at home should have been finished by us," Badani said.
"It will give a lot of belief to guys like Samad as we would have felt he missed out on a couple of times and to have done it here, the next time he will bat differently in a similar situation."
Badani revealed Samad was gutted after the loss to KKR.
"I have to give full marks to Samad. He was the first one to come up to me after the last game and said 'I should have finished the game'. He took ownership of it. He didn't finish well and was unhappy about it.
"He was thinking that 'I am a retained player and I want to show the team that I am worth its time and investment'.
"A few sides have tried doing certain things against him and we have worked on that. One of them did come off this evening," added Badani.