Surya demotes himself to No. 11 as India post 188 for 8 versus Oman
Abu Dhabi (PTI): Sanju Samson made good use of much needed time in the middle as skipper Suryakumar Yadav decided to give every other playing member a hit in the centre, taking India to a healthy 188 for eight against Oman in their final Asia Cup league fixture here on Friday.
With vice-captain Shubman Gill getting out cheaply, the one drop slot warranted a right hander and accordingly Samson (56 off 45 balls) got a chance to bat in the top 3.
It wasn't the smoothest of his innings on a slightly slowish track but three fours and three sixes off would certainly give him confidence ahead of the business week.
Of all his big hits, the first maximum off left-arm seamer Shah Faisal, a pick-up shot over widish long-on stood out but lack of match time showed as he did struggle to get going.
Tilak Varma (29 off 18 balls), coming in at No.7, also did his bit to prop up the score.
It was pretty obvious that India would like to bat first and make full use of the 20 overs before the start of the Super 4s giving sufficient time to their under-utilized middle-order ahead of Pakistan game on Sunday.
The batting order was rightly shuffled giving Samson his favourite slot, promoting Axar Patel (26 off 13 balls) ahead of specialist left-hander Tilak or batting all-rounder Shivam Dube (5).
Skipper Surya, who pushed himself down to No. 11, also gave Hardik Pandya a chance to get a few hits but he was unfortunately run-out at the non-striker's end after a Samson straight drive deflected off bowler's hands to hit the stumps.
Left-handed Axar did his job to perfection in upping the ante and maintaining the tempo set by Abhishek Sharma, who again hit a whirlwind 38 off 15 balls -- his third consecutive score of 30 or more. Towards the end, Harshit Rana also contributed with an unbeaten 13 and hit a six of the last ball.
While Shubman Gill's low score isn't a concern, the team management would want one of their best batters to fire in the business end of the tournament.
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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."
