IPL 2023: We could have chased better, says Gujarat Titans batter Vijay Shankar

After Chennai Super Kings beat Gujarat Titans by 15 runs, Vijay Shankar said the batters “could have chased better.” GT lost by 15 runs against CSK at the MA Chidambaram Stadium and will now have to play Qualifier 2 on Friday.

“I think we could have chased better. We could have got the game much closer,” the Tamil Nadu cricketer said after the match on Tuesday.

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CSK bowlers collectively weakened the GT’s batting unit. Spinner Ravindra Jadeja was the pick of the bowlers. ‘Jaddu’ took two wickets and conceded just 18 runs in the middle to apply the brakes on GT’s 173 run chase. Elsewhere, Maheesh Theekshana, Matheesha Pathirana and Deepak Chahar also took two wickets each.

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The GT chase was derailed by the CSK spinners, who squeezed the flow of runs with Jadeja and Theekshana keeping things tight and also picking up wickets.

“I think they (CSK) bowled pretty well in the middle overs. The middle overs are very, very important for any team that is chasing. We lost wickets. Otherwise, if you see, we lost by 15 runs.”

“If two batters were batting, things would have been different. It is just about losing a wicket at the wrong time. Maybe a partnership of 20, 30 runs in the middle could have got us closer to the game,” Shankar said.

Shankar, who had batted brilliantly couple of days ago at the No 3 spot, was moved down to No 5 against CSK when the team were 88/4.

“Actually, if you see overall in this season, all the batters have played in different positions. So it is not just this game… most of the games…”

“I think that was the strength of our batting unit as well. Whoever went in different situations, we were able to adapt to it and get runs for the team,” he added.

“When you lose a wicket and when you lose a game, things will look odd that we have changed a lot and all. But we have been playing like this overall right from game 1 until now. I think we have shuffled our batting according to the conditions and situations and we have done well.”

Shankar and Rashid Khan tried to revive GT’s chances but the pressure got too much for them.

“Even the over that I got out, I felt I could have calculated a little better. I could have targeted in a better way. So it was a great learning for us. I think we have won a lot of games chasing and this is one of game that we had,” said Shankar, who has scored 301 runs at 160.11 in 12 matches this season.

(With inputs from PTI)

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