"I ended up playing dot balls and doing unwanted things" - Sai Sudharsan on getting dropped from GT team in middle of IPL 2023
Tamil Nadu batter Sai Sudharsan revealed the process that helped him return to Gujarat Titans' playing XI in the final stages of IPL 2023.
Sai Sudarsan played in six league games for the Titans in the league stage, where he scored 223 runs at a strike rate of 125.28. The left-handed batter played 57 dot balls out of the 178 deliveries faced in the initial phase of IPL 2023, which means approximately one out of every three deliveries he faced was a dot ball.
Sai Sudharsan was benched from the LSG game onwards only to return back to the team for their penultimate game against Sunrisers Hyderabad. The GT batter, who was often used as an impact substitute, missed the final league game against RCB and the Qualifier 1 against CSK.
Sudarshan scored 96 off 47 balls in the final against CSK with the help of eight fours and six sixes at a staggering strike rate of 204.25.
Speaking to The Indian Express about his struggles in the early part of the season, he said:
"I ended up playing dot balls and doing unwanted things. So it was more about game sense and tactical than technical. So I focused on that."
Sudarshan elaborated on how he improved his strike-rate and added:
"In practice, I tried to create situations with tight fields and practiced how to rotate singles off good balls and tight lengths so that when a bad ball is there, I could hit for a boundary."
"Confidence of a decent season in domestic cricket helped in this year’s IPL" - Sai Sudharsan
Sai Sudharshan had a terrific domestic season for Tamil Nadu men's team in 2022-23, accumulating 1352 runs across formats. He slammed three centuries in the Vijay Hazare Trophy and a couple more in the Ranji Trophy, including 179 against Hyderabad on first-class cricket debut.
The 21-year-old credited his successful domestic season for his great form in the IPL. He scored 362 runs at a strike rate of 141.41 in the 2023 IPL season. He said:
"Learning and playing domestic cricket has given us adaptability. Confidence of a decent season in domestic cricket helped in this year’s IPL."
"I think the important thing is adaptation. We play in different conditions, states, climates. That is helping us in the IPL. We played in Delhi, Mumbai. It was easier during the IPL."
Sai Sudharsan is currently playing for Lyca Kovai Kings in the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) 2023. He scored 86 runs off 45 balls in the tournament opener against Idream Tiruppur Tamizhans.