Gujarat Titans skipper Hardik Pandya backed his decision to go against the trend and bat first against Punjab Kings despite losing the game by eight wickets, saying that the team needed to do it to get out of their comfort zone ahead of the bigger battles that await them in the 15th season of the Indian Premier League. Titans are currently leading the IPL points table with eight wins from 10 games.
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“We weren’t even close to a par score. 170 would have been ideal, but we kept losing wickets regularly and never came anywhere near it. I backed ourselves with the bat, batting first wasn’t a wrong call, we needed to come out of our comfort zone,” Hardik Pandya said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
“We have chased well in this tournament, if required (later in the tournament), we had to know how to set targets. This is part of a learning curve, but this is all about learning to come out of our own comfort zone. We were always talking about getting better even when we were winning, we would talk about things that didn’t go our way today and would look to come back better in the coming games.”
Punjab skipper Mayank Agarwal, on the other hand, lauded his team after the much-needed win.
Explaining his decision to drop himself down the order to accommodate Jonny Bairstow at the top alongside Shikhar Dhawan, he said, “We are trying to get the best out of Jonny. He’s done well opening. I said, ‘It’s okay, I’ll bat at four, I’ll anchor the innings at four’. With Livi it was clear, Shikhar to bat through and Livi could go out and play the way he wants to play. It was nice the way he played, got the score quickly.”
