Shubman Gill is having a tough initiation into Gujarat Titans captaincy, but senior batter David Miller backed him, saying the 24-year-old is increasingly “adjusting” to the role.
Under Gill's captaincy the Titans, champions in 2022 and runners-up last year under Hardik Pandya, are languishing in ninth place on the 10-team IPL table with no real hope of entering the play-offs.
"Shubman is an exceptional player, as we all know. He is still young and has a lot to learn. But I feel he is adjusting really well to the captaincy.
"But I feel it's a tough one too because the margins are so small,” said Miller in his post-match press meet after GT went down to Royal Challengers Bengaluru by four wickets in Bengaluru on Saturday.
Miller also identified the absence of veteran pacer Mohammed Shami, who is recuperating following an ankle surgery, as a reason for their inefficiency with the ball in the Powerplay.
"Shami, obviously, was really exceptional in the Powerplay. So we feel like we kind of miss him in the Power-play, as he picked up wickets and kept the economy rate down,” said Miller.
The Titans leaked 92 runs in the Powerplay against RCB while defending a modest 148. Tilted the match decisively in favour of the home side.
The Gujarat side themselves were underwhelming in the Powerplay with the bat, scoring just 23 runs, the lowest by any team this season during that particular passage.
In fact, GT's Powerplay run-rate of 7.54 and strike-rate of 118.43 are the lowest among the 10 teams in this IPL; they also have scored the least number of runs in the first six overs – 469.
The South African left-hander admitted that the Titans have misfired at the top with bat and ball.
"Their (RCB bowlers) lengths were a lot better than ours. But we just missed our length, and in the first two, two-and-a-half, three overs where they were already on like 50-60 runs.
"It just looked like they (GT bowlers) were a little bit too far full. I think we were a little bit behind the 8-ball in the Powerplay with our batting and bowling,” he detailed.
Unpacking the season so far for the Titans, Miller said they have not been able to win tight games, something the team excelled in the last couple of years.
“There are certain games that we potentially should have won, that we did lose and were pretty close. If we had won those two games, things would have been very different.
"We won crucial moments (last year) and this year we just haven't been able to win those crucial moments, hence losing the close games.”
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