Lakshya, Satwik-Chirag enter Hong Kong final
Hong Kong (PTI): India's Lakshya Sen entered his first major final in two years after edging out Chinese Taipei's Chou Tien Chen in straight games, while the men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also stormed into the summit clash here on Saturday.
The 23-year-old from Almora, a 2021 World Championships bronze medallist, ended a long wait for a title shot with a fighting 23-21, 22-20 win over world No. 9 and third seed Chou in a gruelling 56-minute semifinal.
The Commonwealth Games champion had last won a Super 500 tournament at the Canada Open in July 2023. He also clinched a Super 300 title at the Syed Modi International in Lucknow in December last year.
Currently ranked world No. 20, Lakshya will face second seed Li Shi Feng of China in the final.
Earlier, the world No. 9 duo of Satwik and Chirag defeated Chinese Taipei's Bing-Wei Lin and Chen Cheng-Kuan 21-17, 21-15 to make their first final of the season after six semifinal heartbreaks. The eighth-seeded Indians will take on China's Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang, silver medallists at the Paris Olympics.
"Finals, finally. It's been seven semifinals since China Open last year. We've been constantly playing semifinals and I think we really wanted to play a final. It's been a while," Chirag said.
"The last final we played was the Thailand Open, probably in May, before the Olympics. We really wanted to do well here and I think we're really happy. Still one more match to go.
"World Championships was good, although we would have loved to play the final, but I think the pairs that we beat with the confidence that we had coming into the World Championships, it was quite good. But having said that, yeah, really happy that we are playing a final here, finally broke that semifinal jinx."
Lakshya read his opponent's attack well during the close-to-an-hour contest to stay ahead for most of the match. He was up 3-0 in the first game, but the 35-year-old Chou kept snapping at his heels before the Indian secured a four-point cushion at the break.
Chou clawed back to 12-12 with four straight points. The duo exchanged parallel shots, with Lakshya showing solid defence, including a forehand return into the gap, but a service fault gave Chou 15-14 lead.
The Taiwanese erred at the net, but replied with a cross-court smash. He then went long twice as Lakshya moved to 18-15. Chou thought there was a double hit during a net dribble, but the umpire ruled against him. Lakshya went long, allowing Chou to cut it to 17-18, and then levelled at 18-18 after another error from the Indian.
At 19-19, the two engaged in a 51-shot rally that ended with Chou finding the net. He hit back to make it 20-20 with a brilliant defensive retrieval. Lakshya earned a second game point when Chou netted a backhand, but squandered it with another long shot. A long serve from Chou finally gave Lakshya his third game point, which he converted with a net cord.
After a 3-3 start in the second, Lakshya slipped to 4-7 with a few errors. Chou stretched his lead to 13-10 with smashes and then to 15-12 with a series of powerful jump hits. Lakshya responded with a delicate drop but Chou regained control at 17-14.
The Indian saved two game points with an easy kill and a clean winner on the line to make it 19-20. He then produced a smash and an outstanding defensive shot to grab match point, sealing the contest again with a fortunate net cord.
The opening game saw the two pairs locked at 3-3 and 6-6 before Satwik's smashes and Chirag’s sharp interceptions helped the Indians inch ahead 11-8.
Though the Taiwanese clawed back to 12-12, the Indians surged to 15-12 and closed the game on their second game point with Chirag's angled, high-paced return.
Chen and Lin started stronger in the second, leading 4-2, but India restored parity at 6-6 after a service misjudgment from their opponents.
A couple of errors from Chirag gave the Taiwanese a 10-8 cushion, only for Satwik to unleash another booming smash to level things at 12-all.
From there, the Indians tightened their grip, moving to 17-15 as Satwik punished a weak return.
Soon it became 19-15 in India's favour before a net error by Chen handed Satwik and Chirag five match points.
The Indians converted immediately after the Taiwanese went long.
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A 99-run loss is unacceptable: Hayden blames batting horror
Ahmedabad (PTI): Gujarat Titans' batting coach Matthew Hayden was scathing about their 99-run defeat to Mumbai Indians, blaming a "horror" batting display and poor death bowling for the heavy loss in the IPL.
From being 44/3 in 5.5 overs, MI hammered 73 runs in the last four overs to post a challenging 199/5 here on Monday. In reply, GT were bundled out for 100.
"I expect our margins to be a lot smaller than 100 (99). That is an unacceptable scorecard for our batting unit," the legendary Australian opener told media 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."
GT boast a strong batting line-up in Sai Sudharsan (759 runs), Shubman Gill (717), and Jos Buttler (538). They have also added New Zealand’s explosive Glenn Phillips in the middle order alongside Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Tewatia.
"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!"
The 54-year-old said GT lost the game in 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.
Shahrukh (35 off 25 balls) and Tewatia (49 off 42) have not fared well this season and Hayden feels the duo along with Phillips (67 off 54 balls) have been struggling because the top order has been below its best.
"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."
Hayden said GT has an aggressive and adaptable unit but their execution fell apart on the day.
"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."
It was poorly executed bowling effort
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Hayden also pointed to poor execution in the death 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 added that GT were below par with the ball on a surface that didn’t fully justify 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."
Hayden said the chase was still within reach but poor shot selection proved costly.
"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."
