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'I rate him quite highly. He gets a little extra from the wicket': Pandya heaps praise on 25-year-old Indian spinner
IPL 2022: Hardik Pandya's Gujarat Titans became the first side to qualify for playoffs in the ongoing season.
The Gujarat Titans secured a massive 62-run win in the 2022 Indian Premier League game against fellow tournament debutants Lucknow Super Giants, thus becoming the first team to qualify for the playoffs. With nine wins in 12 matches, the Titans have been the most consistent team in the season so far and continued on its impressive show on Tuesday, when they defended a lowly target of 145 against KL Rahul's men, bundling the side to merely 82. Follow IPL 2022 Coverage
The Titans had made a couple of changes to their XI for the game including handing a debut cab to young spinner R Sai Kishore, who didn't fail to impress. He only bowled two overs but took two wickets including that of Ayush Badoni. Sai Kishore registered figures of 2/7, contributing efficiently in Titans' win in his maiden IPL outing.
GT skipper Hardik Pandya also heaped praise on the 25-year-old Indian spinner, insisting that Sai Kishore has height and pace that allows him to extract more from the wicket.
“I rate him quite highly as a left-arm spinner. He's quite a technical bowler and because of his height and pace, he gets a little extra from the wicket as well. But it's just that with the kind of fast bowling attack we have, we couldn't make him and Jayant play. But looking at this wicket and the right-handers, we thought he could make a big difference,” Pandya said in the post-match presentation.
Talking about the game, the GT skipper noted that the LSG bowlers were bowling shorter, that allowed the Titans to post a competitive score.
“Lucknow were a bit short in their lengths, and fuller lengths were working. Our bowlers did everything that we asked of them, and we ticked all boxes today. I always feel that if you lose a game like the one we lost in our last game, we win and lose games as a team. Yes, we did not do what we wanted to do. We messed it up, but we messed it up as a team. Everyone stood by each other, and we had a get-together post-game and made sure the vibe was always there. We were still on the second spot and that meant we were doing something right,” said the 28-year-old all-rounder.
