Gujarat Titans’ Sai Sudharsan played a stunning knock in his side’s win over Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday. He took on spinner Mayank Markande in the 16th over of the chase which turned the table.
“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 further added.
Meanwhile, Sai Sudharsan also applauded the Gujarat Titans bowlers for successfully restricting the powerful SRH batting line-up. Notably, SRH had crossed the 100-run mark in the 13th over and they were looking to post a massive target, with Heinrich Klaasen and Aiden Markram in form but GT bowlers sent them in to keep SRH below 170 as well.
“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,” Sai Sudharsan said.
Meanwhile, Muttiah Muralitharan, the spin bowling coach of SRH, also said that the 16th over made the difference in the chase.
“The wicket was a little slow and low, and there was a little spin. We thought of getting close to 180-170, we missed out by 10-15 runs. They bowled really well and we couldn’t capitalise. Even 160 is a manageable total. We were in the game till the 15th over. The 16th over we had to take a gamble – because they had lost only three wickets and then we took a gamble bowling Mayank against two left handers. We knew they would go hard in that over and they might mis-time and we can get a wicket. It didn’t work.”
Muralitharan further added: “The way Mohit bowled, it was difficult for our batters. We also thought that our bowlers adjusted. Pretty good game. We can’t expect every game to go our way. Our boys tried really hard. There will be small mistakes. So, we have to make sure we don’t do that in the next game so we can get into a winning momentum.”
He also opened up on the unavailability of Wanindu Hasaranga and how that has affected the team balance as well. Muralitharan, however, expressed hope for Hasaranga’s return in the coming days, despite reports suggesting that the legspinner has been ruled out of the tournament with the injury
“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.”
