One should not forget that Yash Dayal bowled tough overs for Gujarat Titans in their title-winning campaign, Vijay Shankar defended left-arm pace bowler who failed to defend 29 runs in the final over against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday, 9 April. Playing their third match in the Indian Premier League 2023, GT looked in control while defending 205 runs at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, after Rashid Khan hat-trick rattled the KKR middle order in the 17th over of the game. However, things did not go according to plan as Rinku Singh had different things in mind and scored a blazing 48 off 21 balls, 30 off which came in the final 5 balls of the game.
Asked about the final over in the post-match press conference, Vijay Shankar said a player could not be judged based on their performance in one over since it takes years and years of hard work to reach this stage.
“Last year, Yash Dayal bowled some very important overs for Gujarat Titans, to win us the tournament. You cannot define a player based on one over in a game. Everyone has worked so hard to reach the stage of IPL, having worked so hard in domestic cricket,” Shankar said after the match.
Shankar said that these things do happen in a format as unpredictable as T20s and Dayal needs to be backed in these difficult times.
“These things are bound to happen and so many players have been in tough situation. As a team we will be with Dayal because it is not easy to come out of a situation like this. We will make sure that he is in a very good mental space going forward,” Shankar explained.
The batter, who scored a blistering 63* off 24 balls said that Gujarat largely were on top of the game and it was one of those days that things did not go their way.
“Till that particular point (20th over), we were much ahead in the game. We have to accept that this is a game of cricket, and anything can happen. As a cricketer, I can feel what he is feeling, and it is about how we back him and get him out of a tough situation,” Shankar concluded on the matter.
