The Gujarat Titans had an incredible outing in the 2022 Indian Premier League, as they lifted the title under Hardik Pandya's captaincy. The all-rounder had a maiden stint as skipper in the league and made a magnificent return to competitive cricket in the season, following which he made a comeback to the Indian team. Alongside Hardik, former India cricketer Ashish Nehra was impressive as the side's head coach, and Titans' spinner R Sai Kishore has now opened up on playing under the watchful eyes of the star duo.
Sai Kishore, who played five matches in the season (taking six wickets), said that both, Nehra and Hardik are “genuine” people who communicated quite efficiently with him throughout the season. The spinner didn't play in the initial few games for the side and had to wait till the 57th game of the edition for his league debut. He opened up on his absence in the Titans XI during the start of the season.
“The wickets in Mumbai were great and playing another spinner didn't make sense. I was an IPL newbie and they had more trust in me after I played two games. Ashish Nehra is a vera [different] level human being; he's a very genuine guy. Hardik is also a very genuine guy. It was clearly communicated to me what they had in their heads. You need to think about the team when you're not playing, and it went well,” Sai Kishore told Sportskeeda.
{{/usCountry}}“The wickets in Mumbai were great and playing another spinner didn't make sense. I was an IPL newbie and they had more trust in me after I played two games. Ashish Nehra is a vera [different] level human being; he's a very genuine guy. Hardik is also a very genuine guy. It was clearly communicated to me what they had in their heads. You need to think about the team when you're not playing, and it went well,” Sai Kishore told Sportskeeda.
{{/usCountry}}Further talking about their title-winning season, Sai Kishore said that it was a combined team effort and the combinations with which the side played was “superb”.
“The players Gujarat trusted and picked performed extremely well, so weaknesses were minimized. The team was very well led by Hardik and when you have proper five bowlers, the combination is superb. You just need to score 160-170 runs and you know that the bowlers will defend it. I am a big fan of those teams that have five proper bowlers. The strategy worked really well for us. Four bowlers bowling 145 and the fifth was Rashid Khan. The batting clicked and therefore it was sorted,” said the spinner.