Gujarat Titans managed a comfortable win over Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday. They managed to play a good knock on a slowish Ahmedabad wicket. And, Sai Sudharsan revealed that targeting spinner Mayank Markande in the 16th over of the chase was a key moment in the game as well.

Chasing 163, the Titans were 78/2 at the halfway stage but Sudharsan and David Miller then added a 64-run partnership with 24 of those runs coming in the 16th over as well. With this, the equation, which was 49 off 30, became easier for GT after that over and they won the match convincingly.

“Definitely it was a difficult wicket to bat on, not so easy where you can go after every bowler in every over. It’s about choosing the right bowler, getting the maximum out of it and taking the games deep with wickets in hand,” said Sai Sudharsan. “It’s all about the situation, when the team needs more run rate, obviously we need to step up. But today, it was a different scenario, it was a different wicket. I felt taking the game deep and keeping wickets in hand helped us today.”

“The wicket got a lot bit easier under the lights. And we also changed the momentum because the run-rate was going up as well. Playing against spinners got a bit easier and that helped us target the spinners as well. We were waiting for that one spin over, it was a conscious decision of taking down the spinner and it went our way, so grateful for that,” he again said.

Sai Sudharsan played a quickfire knock

Meanwhile, Muttiah Muralitharan, the spin bowling coach of SRH, also admitted that the 16th over of the game made all the difference.

“The wicket was a little slow and low, and there was a little spin. We thought of getting close to 180-170, we missed out by 10-15 runs. They bowled really well and we couldn’t capitalise. Even 160 is a manageable total. We were in the game till the 15th over. The 16th over we had to take a gamble – because they had lost only three wickets and then we took a gamble bowling Mayank against two left handers. We knew they would go hard in that over and they might mis-time and we can get a wicket. It didn’t work,” he added.

ALSO READ: Zaheer Khan shares MS Dhoni’s plans after IPL 2024

However, Sai Sudharsan also lauded the GT bowlers for restricting the powerful SRH batting line-up as well. SRH crossed the 100-run mark in the 13th over and they were looking for a massive score with Heinrich Klaasen in sublime form. But both Klaasen and Aiden Markram got out and GT did a great job in the death, led by Mohit Sharma’s stunning figures of 3 for 25 as well.

Muttiah Muralitharan applauds GT’s bowling

“They were going with very good momentum, they were getting a lot of boundaries in the powerplay. So everybody felt it might go to 170-180 but we took wickets at the right time and at the end the last five overs were extraordinary from our bowlers. We had a conversation in the timeout, on pulling the team back, because they were maybe 10-12 runs ahead of what we thought,” Sai Sudharsan said.

Muralitharan further added: “The way Mohit bowled, it was difficult for our batters. We also thought that our bowlers adjusted. Pretty good game. We can’t expect every game to go our way. Our boys tried really hard. There will be small mistakes. So, we have to make sure we don’t do that in the next game so we can get into a winning momentum.”

Meanwhile, the veteran Sri Lankan spinner also opined on the unavailability of Wanindu Hasaranga and how that has affected the balance of the team as well. The legend, however, showed hopes that Hasaranga will join the team in the coming days, despite reports suggesting that he has been ruled out of the tournament as well.

“In the auction, we bought one of the best leg-spinners, Hasaranga. He is struggling with some niggles. He is hoping that he will join on the 4th or 5th [of April]. We don’t know,” Muralitharan said. “That is one area, [Daniel] Vettori, everybody covered [at the auction]. We couldn’t get any Indian spinners because we had what we had, and also because no other team would put out [release] the best Indian spinners.

“The only option was Hasaranga. We took him. But unfortunately, he is saying he has some niggles. So, that’s why our balance is a little bit here and there. It’s unfortunate, it happens to teams. We didn’t neglect, we got a spinner. But at the end of the day, it happens,” he concluded.