Hardik Pandya: “Obviously we were not even close to par. 170 would have been an ideal score but we kept losing wickets and did not get any rhythm. I back my decision to bat first because we need to put ourselves in difficult situations where we come out of our comfort zone. We’ve been doing well chasing but we wanted to make sure that we put our batters under pressure so that when the right game comes and we have to bat first, we should know how we have to go. It was an exercise which we wanted to try. We knew the new ball might do something, but we kept losing wickets.
If you keep losing wickets no matter the conditions, your batting is always going to be under pressure. We didn’t get the start we wanted but I’ll take the loss as a learning curve and as I said we need to come out of our comfort zone, try to bat first, and put up some totals as well. Even when we were winning, we were always talking about getting better. We’ll have a chat about where things did not go our way and focus on the things we need to get better for our next game. We don’t have much time. We need to regroup. Losing is a part of the sport and more often than not we’ve been on the winning side.”
Indian Premier League 2022 Points Table
Liam Livingstone: “I didn’t think I was going to bat at one point tonight so it was nice to go in and hit a few out of the middle. I thought Shikhar played beautifully to set it up, him and Bhanu in that partnership to set it up really nicely for us to come in and finish it off. It’s a big win. We needed it after some bad cricket over the last couple of games so it’s nice to turn it around. [Asked about net run rate] No it wasn’t. I went up and said, ‘I fancy going in before you.] He said, ‘You go in if Bhanu gets out,’ and Mayank was going in if Shikhar got out. It’s good.
We know our roles. It helped to have Mayank in that middle so that if we do lose a couple of wickets, we had some stability. I think sometimes we’ve gone a little bit too hard in this tournament. It’s a massive win and will lift the camp a lot. I think it’s all about learning. It’s very hard to just go and play the way we wanted to play. As a new team to be really successful was going to be a big ask. I think we’re learning as we go. We played a little bit smarter today and sometimes you need to play that way, especially on pitches like that. I thought Shikhar played beautifully. We talked about nullifying Rashid and we did that lovely. It’s still being as positive as we can but make sure we choose the right moments to do that.”
Indian Premier League 2022 Fixture
Punjab captain Mayank Agarwal: “We would like to string a few wins back to back now. [Decision to send Livingston up the order and Bairstow to open.] We’re trying to get the best out of Jonny. He’s done well opening the innings and I said I’ll go anchor at No. 4 and he can express himself. Shikhar was going to bat through and Livvy could go up there and play the way he wants to play. It was nice the way he played and got the score pretty quickly. [Asked if Net run rate factored into the decision] When we got to that point and felt the two points were always there and we can score it as quickly as possible, then we also want to help the net run rate. It was in the back of the mind, so if Livvy could go in and do what he did, then fantastic. I thought we bowled exceedingly well, got early wickets, and choked them in between. So that helped restrict them to a below-par score. Then their partnership up front between Shikhar and Bhanu was very important for us.”
Punjab Kings vs Gujarat Titans Highlights today, Tuesday 3-5-2022. 48th Match (N), Tata Indian Premier League from Dr DY Patil Sports Academy, Mumbai.
GT win the toss and choose to bat first.
Punjab Kings team: 1 Shikhar Dhawan, 2 Mayank Agarwal (capt.), 3 Bhanuka Rajapaksa, 4 Jonny Bairstow, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 7 Rishi Dhawan, 8 Kagiso Rabada, 9 Rahul Chahar, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Sandeep Sharma.
Gujarat Titans team: 1 Shubman Gill, 2 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 3 Sai Sudharsan, 4 Hardik Pandya (capt.), 5 David Miller, 6 Rahul Tewatia, 7 Rashid Khan, 8 Alzarri Joseph, 9 Lockie Ferguson, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Pradeep Sangwan.
Indian Premier League 2022 Teams
Player of the Match Kagiso Rabada: “Finally we got the win. After being a bit inconsistent in this tournament. We felt like we just wanted to string a couple of wins under our belt. We bowled first again, something we’re used to doing, and collectively we bowled well to restrict them to 144, and then at the end, our batters did that. At the end of the day, you need the bowlers to bowl as a collective and as a team, we had a good outing. [Asked if he was thinking about a five-for after getting four wickets with three balls left in his spell] You can’t get too greedy. Stick to the process.
If you get a wicket, you get a wicket. Stick to what works and that’s what I tried to do. As long as we won, then that’s fine. [On Arshdeep] He’s done a lot of work and he’s shown that, especially in the death overs. He’s got a good head on his shoulders and works hard. He reads the game pretty decently for someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience and he’s just able to execute his skill. He’s done it a game in, game out. You don’t have to say much to someone who is performing that way. Every now and then he’ll ask questions, and he asks deliberate questions that are not vague.
So it just shows that he knows where he wants to go and what he wants to work on so I’m not saying too much to him. As a bowler, you’re gonna have to bowl at all stages of the game. It’s just about figuring out how to be the most effective in each stage of the game and perform in each stage of the game. Sometimes it doesn’t work out for you may be in the first, second, or third stage, but the perfect game is if you have all three green lights. But it’s just about being as effective as possible in all three stages of the game.”
Head to head
Total matches played: 1
PBKS Won: 0
GT Won: 1
Match Timings: 14:00 GMT | 19:30 Local
Umpires – Rohan Pandit, Virender Sharma
TV Umpires – Saiyed Khalid
Match Referee – Daniel Manohar
Reserve Umpire – Ulhas Gandhe
Match number – Tata IPL 2022 – Seasone 15, 48th Match
