With 300 increasingly becoming the number that defines ambition in T20 cricket, batting units are being judged as much on their ceiling as their consistency. Gujarat Titans (GT), on paper, possess one of the most formidable top threes in the competition – Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill and Jos Buttler – one that could chase down or even set those daunting totals.
But inside the dressing room, the conversation is a little less dramatic. As Sudharsan put it on the eve of the season, the team isn’t chasing a number – it’s chasing the game in front of them.
“It is all about playing to the conditions. It is all about playing the variables, playing the man rather than thinking from a predetermined mindset that we have to score 300, or we have to score so many runs to defend the game. We are not thinking it that way. We are thinking about it from a more versatile point. What the wicket is, what the bowlers are doing, how we can tackle them and how best we can come out of it. That’s the biggest, and that’s most we are talking about,” Sudharsan said in a media interaction on Friday.
“Personally, I don’t have a lot of personal targets to achieve and things like that. Yes, we all want to be at our best. We all want to score runs every game, but the biggest thought process for me is now we have to do that for our team to the fullest of our abilities. That’s the top priority. From there comes yes, we have to make our team win. We have to score a lot of runs, but the biggest priority is this,” he added.
In a format increasingly defined by power, Sudharsan’s game has largely been built on timing – finding gaps, keeping the scoreboard moving, and batting deep. It’s a method that doesn’t always grab headlines in the age of 300, but one GT continue to trust. It’s an approach that feels familiar. India’s recent T20 World Cup triumph was built not on chasing milestones but on clarity of roles – players doing what the situation demanded.
“Yes, I don’t think it’s only about power hitting, and the way we look at it is slightly different. I think in a more traditional way, we are looking at how we can replicate things, how we can be as consistent as possible and how we can take the game deeper and make the team win. So, I think our thought process and energy is all around that. Yes, we have to learn, we have to improve from what the World Cup team has done. So, I think they have done a tremendous job. So, I think we have learned from that, and we would love to do it, and if the team requires it, we have to be versatile enough to have all the guns in our armoury,” he said.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t room to grow. Sudharsan has been one of the more reliable boundary-hitters in the league, but the six-hitting numbers – 52 in his career so far – hint at a dimension still being developed. And that’s where the new GT batting coach Matthew Hayden comes in.
“I think definitely, yes. With 10 days of time, we already have a few conversations around that on how he used to look at those aspects, what you exactly mentioned. Yes, we had conversations, and hopefully, it helps me to get more success,” Sudharsan said.
