Gujarat Titans batter Glenn Phillips said his side, back on track after early setbacks this IPL season, is banking on its pacers to deliver at home as it targets a third successive win, against struggling Kolkata Knight Riders, here on Friday.
Gujarat Titans made a poor start, losing their first two games, but have since found their rhythm with back-to-back wins and will be eyeing a third against KKR, who are languishing at the bottom with four defeats.
“We’ve got a very fast pace attack and maybe KKR, for example, have an incredible spin attack with (Sunil) Narine and (Varun) Chakravarthy and obviously (Anukul) Roy is bombing very well,” said Phillips during a media interaction on Thursday.
“We may want to back our pace bowlers more over the spin and let our batters who are really good at playing pace face their (KKR) pace bowlers,” said the New Zealander.
With most matches this season turning into a high-scoring affair, with totals regularly crossing 200 and even 250, Phillips said big scores remain a key talking point. However, he added that the long boundaries at this venue mean 210-220 would still be a competitive total.
“Yeah, obviously it is a big conversation. The scores have been getting higher and higher every year and obviously it becomes tougher and tougher for bowlers, especially with how good the wickets are and on some grounds they are particularly small.
“So we are very blessed here to have a slightly bigger boundary but obviously it is equated with the pitch being an incredibly batter-friendly pitch as well.
“So, I think given different conditions and different environments, for us if 210 or 220 is actually a good score to keep a team to on this pitch then that’s the sort of score that we’ll look to keep them to or whether it’s 250 but if the pitch dictates that we need to keep them down to that 160-180 mark, I think the bowlers are going about their plans really well,” he added.
With five teams tied on four points, Gujarat Titans’ negative net run rate could be a concern, but Phillips played it down, saying it is still early days and the team will look to keep building bigger totals.
He appeared slightly perplexed when asked about converting his cameos into bigger scores, noting that he has batted at different positions and on varied pitches where big scores aren’t always guaranteed.
“How much research have you done into the positions I’ve batted into in the eight games I’ve played in? I’ve been in completely different situations, I’ve played on some rubbish pitches in Dubai, I’ve been in situations where I’ve come in with six balls to go.
“It’s pretty hard to score big scores in those sorts of environments and obviously maybe when you do get the opportunity to go big that day maybe isn’t your day. It’s a little bit of a tough environment to, I guess, score big and score consistently but for me I think it’s about trying to contribute to the team,” he added
