The decision to go against the grain and beat first didn’t pay off, but it’s something the Gujarat Titans needed to do to get out of their comfort zone ahead of the bigger battles ahead. in the IPL, said skipper Hardik Pandya. The Titans, who lead the IPL points table with eight wins from 10 games and are expected to reach the play-offs, lost to Punjab by eight wickets on Tuesday. The Titans struggled at 143 for eight which Punjab chased in 16 overs.
“We weren’t even close to a normal score. 170 would have been ideal, but we kept losing wickets steadily and never came close. I backed myself up with the bat, strike first wasn’t a bad call, we had to get out of our comfort zone,” Hardik said.
“We hunted well in this tournament, if necessary (later in the tournament) we had to know how to set goals. It’s part of a learning curve, but it’s about learning how to get out of our own comfort zone.
“We were always talking about improving even when we were winning, we were talking about things that were not going our way today and we would be looking to come back better in the next games.” Punjab skipper Mayank Agarwal congratulated his team after the much needed victory. He decided to drop out of the order to welcome Jonny Bairstow to the top alongside Shikhar Dhawan.
Explaining the move, he said: “We’re trying to get the best out of Jonny. He did the opener well. I said, ‘It’s okay, I’m going to hit four, I’m going to anchor the innings at four”. With Livi it was clear, Shikhar was going through and Livi could come out and play the way he wanted to play. It was the way he played, he got the score quickly,” Agarwal said.
Promoted
He also said his side needed to gain consistency as the race for a play-off spot grew more intense.
“We’d like to string together a few (wins), no better time than to get a few straight wins.”
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