Pacing the innings and taking the game deep on a slowish Ahmedabad wicket was the key to Gujarat Titans’ success against Sunrisers Hyderabad, pointed out Sai Sudharsan who also added that targeting spinner Mayank Markande in the 16th over of the chase was a key moment in the match.
Chasing 163 for victory, the Titans were 78/2 at the halfway stage of the innings. Sudharsan and David Miller then put on a 64-run partnership that kept GT on track, with 24 of those runs coming in the 16th over bowled by the legspinner. The equation, which was 49 off 30, became a lot easier for GT after that over and they went on to win with five deliveries to spare.
“Definitely it was a difficult wicket to bat on, not so easy where you can go after every bowler in every over. It’s about choosing the right bowler, getting the maximum out of it and taking the games deep with wickets in hand,” said Sudharsan. “It’s all about the situation, when the team needs more run rate, obviously we need to step up. But today, it was a different scenario, it was a different wicket. I felt taking the game deep and keeping wickets in hand helped us today.
“The wicket got a lot bit easier under the lights. And we also changed the momentum because the run-rate was going up as well. Playing against spinners got a bit easier and that helped us target the spinners as well. We were waiting for that one spin over, it was a conscious decision of taking down the spinner and it went our way, so grateful for that,” he said.
The spin bowling instructor of SRH, Muttiah Muralitharan, concurred that the sixteenth over was decisive. “The pitch was moderately sluggish and low, with some spin.” We had hoped to approach 180-170 runs, but fell short by 10–15 runs. Due to their exceptional bowling, we were unable to capitalize. 160 is an entirely manageable sum. We maintained our position in the game until the fifteenth over. We had only lost three wickets when we were forced to take a risk in the sixteenth over by bowling Mayank against two left-handeders. We anticipated that they would exert considerable effort in that over; they might even mistime, giving us an opportunity to take a wicket. Failure to achieve the desired outcome.
Additionally, Sudharsan lauded the GT bowlers for containing the formidable SRH batting order. The visiting team had surpassed 100 runs in the thirteenth over and Heinrich Klaasen appeared poised to lead the charge with his menacing form. However, SRH was set back by the crucial wickets of Aiden Markram and Klaasen, and GT responded with a strong bowling performance in the final over, headed by Mohit Sharma’s outstanding figures of 3 for 25, to keep SRH below 170.
“They were going with very good momentum; they were getting a lot of boundaries in the powerplay. So everybody felt it might go to 170-180 but we took wickets at the right time and at the end the last five overs were extraordinary from our bowlers. We had a conversation in the timeout, on pulling the team back, because they were maybe 10-12 runs ahead of what we thought,” Sudharsan said.
Muralitharan observed, “The way Mohit bowled made it difficult for our batters.” We also assumed our bowlers had adjusted. Pretty good game. We cannot expect every game to go our way. Our boys worked incredibly hard. There will be minor errors. So, we have to avoid doing that in the upcoming game in order to build a winning momentum.”
Meanwhile, the great Sri Lankan spinner discussed Wanindu Hasaranga’s absence and how it affected the team’s balance. Despite speculations that Hasaranga has been ruled out of the tournament, Muralitharan expressed hope that the legspinner will join the team in the coming days.
“In the auction, we bought one of the best leg-spinners, Hasaranga. He is struggling with some niggles. He is hoping that he will join on the 4th or 5th [of April]. We don’t know,” Muralitharan said. “That is one area, [Daniel] Vettori, everybody covered [at the auction]. We couldn’t get any Indian spinners because we had what we had, and also because no other team would put out [release] the best Indian spinners.
“The only option was Hasaranga. We took him. But unfortunately, he is saying he has some niggles. So, that’s why our balance is a little bit here and there. It’s unfortunate, it happens to teams. We didn’t neglect, we got a spinner. But at the end of the day, it happens.”
