Matthew Hayden, the batting coach for the Gujarat Titans, was harsh about the team’s 99-run loss to the Mumbai Indians, accusing them of a “horror” batting performance and subpar death bowling.
MI smashed 199/5 in Ahmedabad on Monday after hitting 73 runs in the final four overs after being 44/3 in 5.5 overs. GT were bundled out for 100 in response.
“I expect our margins to be a lot smaller than 100 (99). That is an unacceptable scorecard for our batting unit,” PTI quoted the legendary Australian opener as saying in the post-match interaction.
“It was just a horrible day for us today. Truth be told, there was nothing good about this day, really, apart from Rabada’s performance with the ball. So we’ve got some work to do, definitely.”
Sai Sudharsan (759 runs), Shubman Gill (717), and Jos Buttler (538) make up GT’s potent batting lineup. Along with Rahul Tewatia and Shahrukh Khan, they have also added the explosive Glenn Phillips of New Zealand to the middle order.
“When you look down at our batting line-up, we’ve got wonderful players that have to be in a better mindset and better position to take their opportunities. That is our expectations and has been since the conception of this Gujarat Titans franchise…
“So you can’t be sitting here and being happy about, a 100-run (99) margin game in a 20-over game. I mean, back in my day, 100 runs was almost a winning total in 50-over cricket!”
According to the 54-year-old, GT lost the game during the powerplay.
“Well, middle order was undoubtedly exposed today. When they’re coming in with six overs, you know that you’re in deep trouble. The thing about the power plays is that you can’t win it from there, especially in a run chase, but you can definitely lose it, and we lost it in the power play,” he said.
Hayden believes that Shahrukh’s (35 off 25 balls) and Tewatia’s (49 off 42) poor performance this season, along with Phillips’ (67 off 54 balls), has been because of the top order’s poor performance.
“The relevance behind balls faced when you look at, for example, someone like Glenn Phillips — his record in T20 cricket is an impressive strike rate and you’ll take that all day long in the majority of games,” Hayden said.
“However, you need an upfront batting effort where you consistently taking the lion’s share of the batting. We shouldn’t be allowing, Tiwu (Tewatia) or Shahrukh or these guys lots of balls. That’s not their role. That’s not what they train for.”
According to Hayden, GT is an ambitious and flexible team, but on that particular day, their execution failed.
“We are a very good thinking batting unit. We’re not a conservative batting unit. You don’t go out and get 200s as often as we do being conservative. But they’re an adaptive batting unit. …they’ve got their roles and they play them and today they simply didn’t.
“So the worry isn’t just today about the middle order. It’d be unfair to say that, they were going to go on and score 13 runs an over because by that stage, I felt like as a batting coach, I was on the mast and the boat was sinking.”
Hayden also cited subpar performance in the final overs.
“I feel like one-dimensional is very unfair on a world-class bowling attack, but I will take on board it was a poorly executed bowling effort this evening.
“When you look back at those last four overs, that was just a ‘horror story’ — 73 off the last four is unacceptable as world-class players. That bowling line-up has to reflect on that performance… It was purely an executional thing.”
He continued by saying that GT’s poor performance with the ball on a surface did not entirely explain the high total.
“We’re very average with the ball, firstly, on a wicket that I really felt was probably a 175-type wicket.
“When you look historically at this black soil pitch on No. 5, it’s a 200-wicket for the loss of five batters. That’s been its winning first-inning score, and today it wasn’t that wicket (199/5)… It was visible that it had cracks in it. It was visible that it was up and down.
“So credit also has to go to Tilak Varma, who put in a wonderful performance. It wasn’t a cookie-cutter type performance. It was a dominant performance down the ground. He read the play nicely. He was able to pick up and play with power and precision.”
Although bad shot selection proved costly, Hayden said the chase was still within grasp.
“And when you reflect on our own batting, we had one side of the ground that was a little more inaccessible than the other, and we lost, what, three wickets into the bigger side of that boundary.
“And it wasn’t an impossible total. 200 still is a total that I would back our three world-class players at the top of the order to etch into that a bit more and then allow our more sort of game players. An opportunity to set out their stalls and bat deep into the innings.”
The Gujarat Titans’ defeat affects their position in the IPL standings table, which may have an impact on their prospects of making the playoffs. The squad has an important forthcoming match, therefore they will need to address their batting issues as soon as possible. The team’s tactics and player choices for upcoming games are called into question by this loss.
