Batting first wasn’t wrong, need to be out of comfort zone: Gujarat Titans skipper Hardik Pandya

By ANI

NAVI MUMBAI: Gujarat Titans skipper Hardik Pandya on Tuesday said his team need to get out of their comfort zone and added that batting first against Punjab Kings wasn’t a wrong call. The Punjab Kings (PBKS) bounced back in style in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 after registering a victory against Gujarat Titans (GT) by 8 wickets at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.

After winning the toss Gujarat became the first team to opt to bat in a night game, after which Punjab Kings restricted them to 143/8 courtesy of Kagiso Rabada who picked up 4 wickets.

Hardik Pandya in the post-match presentation said: “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.”

Talking about his decision to bat first, the GT skipper said: “I backed ourselves with the bat, batting first wasn’t a wrong call, we needed to come out of our comfort zone (which was chasing targets). We have chased well in this tournament, if required (later on 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. We have another game in a couple of days, we need to regroup, winning and losing is a part of sport,” he added.

In the chase, PBKS opener Shikhar Dhawan steadied the innings getting his 47th IPL Fifty, after which Liam Livingstone scored 30* off 10 balls to finish the game.