Ahmedabad, Apr 27 (PTI) Former India off-spinner Aashish Kapoor on Saturday expressed his disappointment with the bowlers’ ordinary performance in this IPL season and said the day is not far when teams will start scoring 300-350 runs in an innings.
Teams have been regularly scoring over 200-250 runs this season with Sunrisers Hyderabad going past 260 on three occasions and Punjab Kings pulling off a world record chase in T20 cricket against Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday.
Kapoor, who has been serving as Gujarat Titans’ assistant coach since their inaugural season in 2022, felt on the eve of their match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru that the bowlers of most teams have completely got their length wrong.
“The batsmen are playing some amazing shots, but the bowling is not up to the mark. (GT head coach Asish) Nehra and I keep talking about it. Absolutely, I am surprised,” Kapoor said at the pre-match press conference.
“I mean if you bowled decently enough you will end up giving away 200 runs, but not 260, 280, 270. Last few matches, every over there have been at least two full tosses, two short balls bowled in their half.
“If you are not going to pitch the ball on good length areas and keep bowling on your half, why 260, you will end up seeing 360 also. Now they are bowling two full tosses an over, in future they will bowl four full tosses an over, and you will see 300-plus scores very soon,” he added.
Kapoor was, however, contend with the performance of his team’s bowlers so far in the tournament.
“I don’t think bowling has been our problem this year. They might be having problems but not our bowling.” He also cited example to buttress his point.
“In Lucknow, which was a flat wicket we got them out for 160, but we couldn’t chase it down. And again, against Delhi it looked a little damp that day (at Ahmedabad).
“If we had won the toss we would have bowled. We didn’t win the toss, we had to bat…I am not giving an excuse but if we got to 150, we would have probably put up a good fight. Still we ended up taking four-five wickets.” In that game against DC at home, GT were shot out for 89.
Kapoor said the team made a conscious decision to play on both black and red soil wickets at home this season, having mostly used red soil pitches in their first two seasons.
“Now the wickets in Ahmedabad, half of them are black soil wickets and half of them are red soil. Usually the black soil wicket keeps a little low bounce and it’s a little sluggish than red soil wicket.
“I think the last two years we played most of our matches on the red soil wickets, or the mixed wicket, whatever you cal it. But this year we also wanted to play on black soil wickets and see if it helps our spinners,” he said.
“Against Mumbai we got 170, but we won the game. And I think against Punjab, it was red soil wicket, we scored 190 and it went to the last stage and we lost the game. I thing we are getting a red soil wicket tomorrow,” Kapoor said.
Asked about the impact player rule, he said it is “hampering” the growth of all-rounders in India.
“These days we just don’t get into the tail, you pick up the fifth wicket a batsman walks in, you pick up the sixth wicket another batsman walks in. It’s only 20 overs, so how many batsmen you need.
“That (impact player rule) is also one of the reasons why a lot of all-rounders… a guy like Shivam Dube, he is an all-rounder, basically a bowler who could bat. Now, he is batting but he never bowls. And this is also hampering India in producing all-rounders,” he felt.
“Most of the all-rounders who are there are sitting outside, as impact players. They are just batting. So, I don’t know how much this is helping,” Kapoor said.
The GT assistant coach also said the absence of experienced pacer Mohammed Shami has not helped the side this season.
“Mohammed Shami is a world-class performer, anybody would miss him, right. He has done well for us in the last two seasons, those four overs will obviously make a little bit of difference.
“But then you can’t keep cribbing. You have to look at different options and move on.” Kapoor also refused to rule any team out of contention for play-offs berth at this juncture of the tournament.
“The place where we are in the tournament currently, the mid section even we have to keep winning games. They (RCB) still will be thinking that they have a chance if they win all the remaining games. At the moment every team has a chance,” he said.
“Everybody has something to gain.” Kapoor praised R Sai Kishore and called him “one of the most confident players in our team.” “He always thinks that he can win us a game. Players like him will keep performing. Yes, we have worked a bit on his bowling, technical part, we have told him that he can become an even better bowler.”
Source: PTI News
