Gujarat Titans' bowlers were erratic at times.
Gujarat Titans (GT) batting coach Matthew Hayden gave scathing remarks for his bowlers following a narrow defeat against Rajasthan Royals (RR) in Ahmedabad last night. At the press conference, Hayden explicitly mentioned that GT bowlers were off the mark while acknowledging that his bowlers were also a tad unlucky.
“I felt like a lot of our bowlers were just a little bit off their rhythm and their line in particular. Siraj had an off day, simple as that. When we reviewed his pitch map, he was a little bit too short, a little bit too wide, and that’s just a great bowler just having an off day. Whereas I thought Rashid actually could have had a much better day. It could have been a couple more wickets in the wicket column, and so too with KG Rabada as well.”
Hayden went on to add that Rabada bowled erratic lines at times, with back-of-a-length deliveries being a tad leg-sided. He also pointed out six wide balls that Gujarat Titans bowled, which was eventually the margin of defeat against RR.
“If anything, KG bowled a little bit of a leg-stumpy line, back of a length. And short-of-a-length, good-length balls tended to be a fraction wide of off stump. But we’re splitting hairs in many ways. Batters have the intent now to score quickly. But the star bowlers would be expected to do the basics right, wouldn’t they? It just shows you the margins in these games – this is a loss by six runs – are so small. But the point is definitely noted in terms of the discipline and wides and just those abilities of our bowlers to keep consistently bowling their best ball.”
As Hayden pointed out, Siraj was completely off yesterday and ended up as Gujarat Titans’ most expensive bowler, conceding 12 runs per over by taking only a solitary wicket. Around 36% of his total deliveries were either too wide or down leg, which allowed RR batters to score freely as Siraj failed to extract early movement.
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Kagiso Rabada planned to bowl straighter lines into the body, which at times resulted in him going too down leg, particularly against LHBs. The southpaws were quick to pounce on every loose stuff, especially the two openers, who made full use of his erratic straighter lines.
Meanwhile, Ashok Sharma bowled with good pace and was often on the receiving end of high-skill batting by RR top and middle-order batters. He could be termed unlucky for bowling well and still going for runs, as that boundary by Dhruv Jurel on the second delivery of the 10th set and the maximum by Riyan Parag on the first ball of the 18th over were on fairly good deliveries.
Rashid Khan was again on the wrong side of a sublime batting performance by batters, and he was punished for a couple of quality balls, where Dhruv Jurel used the depth of the crease and read the lengths quickly. It was one of those days when Gujarat Titans did plenty right but had little to show for it, as Rajasthan Royals’ batters were too skilled to be contained and left bowlers with almost no margin for error.
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