Former South African skipper Shaun Pollock questioned Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy after Punjab Kings suffered a four-wicket loss against Gujarat Titans at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, on Sunday.
Surprisingly, Yuzvendra Chahal bowled a solitary over, in which he conceded 13 runs but he was not backed by Iyer. Pollock said Chahal has all the experience under his belt, and if Iyer didn’t bowl because of the match-up against left-handers, then it was a wrong call.
Shaun Pollock said on Cricbuzz, “If they are saying Chahal is not good enough against left-handers, that’s wrong. But if the decision was out of the belief that the seamers were going to be the most effective, then you can live with that. However, the guy with the most IPL wicket, he is a better bowler than that. He can bowl to lefties, so I was a bit surprised that they kept him as deep as they did.”
Former Indian fast bowler Zaheer Khan also concurred with Pollock and said it was surprising that Chahal bowled only one over.
He said in the same discussion, “In hindsight, it is surprising. They could have taken the calculated risk of bowling him, maybe in the 11th over. It would have given Shreyas Iyer the luxury of figuring out whether two or three overs of Chahal can be used. But the spinner didn’t have much of a role in those conditions.”
Pollock said he would back Jason Holder over Rahul Tewati after GT’s win against PBKS. Holder bagged 4-24 in his four overs and was awarded Player of the Match whereas Tewatia was dismissed after scoring two runs.
“The way they played, I would definitely go Holder before Tewatia. Tewatia just looks like he is looking at one area to score. There lies GT’s problem because at the backend of the tournament, you need your middle order to get you over the line. You can’t trust just the top three to do the job all the time,” said Pollock (via the aforementioned source).
“They don’t have as many thumping wins because those come when you have five or six guys in good form. They don’t have that. GT has three and the rest are still trying to strip it together to make a contribution.
Gujarat Titans will next take on Rajasthan Royals at Jaipur on Saturday.
