Gujarat Titans batting coach Matthew Hayden did not mince words after his side suffered a crushing 99-run loss to Mumbai Indians, pointing to a “horror” batting showing and a lack of control in the closing overs as the key reasons for the heavy defeat in the IPL. Mumbai Indians, after restricting GT to 44/3 in 5.5 overs, exploded late—smashing 73 runs in the final four overs—to post 199/5 on Monday. In reply, Gujarat were bowled out for just 100, leaving them with a result Hayden described as completely unacceptable for their batting group.
Speaking to the media after the match, Hayden admitted the entire outing had gone wrong for GT, while singling out Rabada’s bowling as the only bright spot. “I expect our margins to be a lot smaller than 100 (99). That is an unacceptable scorecard for our batting unit,” he said. “It was just a horrible day for us today. Truth be told, there was nothing good about this day, really, apart from Rabada’s performance with the ball. So we’ve got some work to do, definitely.”
GT captain Shubman Gill, meanwhile, placed the responsibility squarely on the bowling unit. He said the team conceded too many runs in the middle overs and that the total should have been easier to chase. “Honestly, I think we gave away too many runs in the middle overs. On a wicket like that, I think 160-170 was a par score. But I think there are a lot of learnings for us from this game,” Gill said after the loss.
Hayden also addressed the bigger picture around GT’s batting stocks entering the season, noting that the franchise has built a strong batting line-up. Sai Sudharsan has accumulated 759 runs, Gill has 717, while Jos Buttler has 538. In addition, Gujarat have introduced Glenn Phillips from New Zealand into the middle order along with Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Tewatia, seeking a more explosive look as the innings progresses.
But Hayden suggested that talent alone is not enough when execution and mindset slip. “When you look down at our batting line-up, we’ve got wonderful players that have to be in a better mindset and better position to take their opportunities. That is our expectations and has been since the conception of this Gujarat Titans franchise,” he said. He also questioned how a 99-run defeat can happen in a 20-over match. “So you can’t be sitting here and being happy about, a 100-run (99) margin game in a 20-over game. I mean, back in my day, 100 runs was almost a winning total in 50-over cricket!”
The coach further argued that the match swung early, with Gujarat’s batting exposed at the start of the chase. He said the powerplay is a phase where teams rarely “win” a chase, but they can certainly lose it by allowing the opposition to seize momentum. “Well, middle order was undoubtedly exposed today. When they’re coming in with six overs, you know that you’re in deep trouble,” Hayden said. “The thing about the power plays is that you can’t win it from there, especially in a run chase, but you can definitely lose it, and we lost it in the power play.”
Hayden also pointed to struggles from specific batters this season. He highlighted that Shahrukh Khan, who made 35 off 25 balls in this game, and Tewatia, who hit 49 off 42, have not delivered to the level expected so far. He felt both of them, along with Phillips—who scored 67 off 54 balls—were finding it difficult largely because the top order has been underperforming. “The relevance behind balls faced when you look at, for example, someone like Glenn Phillips—his record in T20 cricket is an impressive strike rate and you’ll take that all day long in the majority of games,” Hayden said.
However, he stressed that the batting plan has to ensure enough batting time and enough balls for the players who are meant to accelerate. “However, you need an upfront batting effort where you consistently taking the lion’s share of the batting. We shouldn’t be allowing, Tiwu (Tewatia) or Shahrukh or these guys lots of balls. That’s not their role. That’s not what they train for,” Hayden added.
Despite the criticism, Hayden insisted Gujarat are not built to be overly cautious. He described the group as aggressive and adaptable, with players assigned clear roles. “We are a very good thinking batting unit. We’re not a conservative batting unit. You don’t go out and get 200s as often as we do being conservative. But they’re an adaptive batting unit. …they’ve got their roles and they play them and today they simply didn’t.”
He acknowledged that the concern should not be limited only to the middle order, arguing that blaming one section would be unfair. “So the worry isn’t just today about the middle order. It’d be unfair to say that, they were going to go on and score 13 runs an over because by that stage, I felt like as a batting coach, I was on the mast and the boat was sinking,” Hayden said.
Hayden’s assessment also returned to the bowling, where he felt the execution in the death overs was well below what the side is capable of. While he rejected the idea that the bowling attack is one-dimensional, he admitted the performance in the final stages was poor. “I feel like one-dimensional is very unfair on a world-class bowling attack, but I will take on board it was a poorly executed bowling effort this evening.”
He underlined the damage done in the last four overs, describing it as a “horror story” after Mumbai made 73 in that period. “When you look back at those last four overs, that was just a ‘horror story’—73 off the last four is unacceptable as world-class players. That bowling line-up has to reflect on that performance… It was purely an executional thing,” Hayden said. He also felt GT were below par with the ball even though the surface did not fully justify the high total.
According to Hayden, the wicket appeared misread and did not behave like a pitch that should have allowed a score of 199/5 to be comfortably reached. “We’re very average with the ball, firstly, on a wicket that I really felt was probably a 175-type wicket.” He went on to reference the historical pattern of the venue, saying the black soil pitch on No. 5 has often been favorable for totals around 200. “When you look historically at this black soil pitch on No. 5, it’s a 200-wicket for the loss of five batters. That’s been its winning first-inning score, and today it wasn’t that wicket (199/5)… It was visible that it had cracks in it. It was visible that it was up and down.”
Hayden, though, also gave credit where it was due, highlighting Tilak Varma’s contribution for Mumbai. He said Varma’s innings was not a typical template performance but a dominant display at the crease. “So credit also has to go to Tilak Varma, who put in a wonderful performance. It wasn’t a cookie-cutter type performance. It was a dominant performance down the ground. He read the play nicely. He was able to pick up and play with power and precision,” Hayden said.
Even with the eventual collapse, Hayden believed the chase was still within reach early on, but poor shot choices brought the momentum to a halt. He pointed to the way the boundary angles and fielding conditions affected Gujarat’s options. “And when you reflect on our own batting, we had one side of the ground that was a little more inaccessible than the other, and we lost, what, three wickets into the bigger side of that boundary.”
Finally, Hayden insisted that the chase was not beyond GT’s reach if they had executed better and used their best batters at the top more effectively. “And it wasn’t an impossible total. 200 still is a total that I would back our three world-class players at the top of the order to etch into that a bit more and then allow our more sort of game players. An opportunity to set out their stalls and bat deep into the innings,” he concluded.
