New Delhi: The soft underbelly of Gujarat Titans‘ batting was thorougly exposed in their 99-run defeat to Mumbai Indians in an IPL 2026, batting coach Matthew Hayden has admitted.
Gujarat were bowled out for 100 in 15.5 overs in chase of a 200-run at their home on Monday as Mumbai smashed 73 runs in the last four overs despite being at 44 for three in 5.5 overs.
For a batting line-up comprising skipper Shubman Gill, Jos Buttler, Sai Sudharsan and Glenn Phillips, losing by such a heavy margin it is simply unacceptable, said Hayden.
“I expect our margins to be a lot smaller than 100 (99). That is an unacceptable scorecard for our batting unit,” the former Australian opener said after the match.
“It was just a horrible day for us today. Truth be told, there was nothing good about this day, really, apart from Rabada’s performance with the ball. so we’ve got some work to do, definitely.
“When you look down at our batting line-up, we’ve got wonderful players that have to be in a better mindset and better position to take their opportunities. That is our expectations and has been since the conception of this Gujarat Titans franchise.
“So you can’t be sitting here and being happy about, a 100-run (99) margin game in a 20-over game. I mean, back in my day, 100 runs was almost a winning total in 50-over cricket!,” he continued, adding that they lost the game in the powerplay overs of their innings.
“Well, middle order was undoubtedly exposed today. When they’re coming in with six overs, you know that you’re in deep trouble. The thing about the power plays is that you can’t win it from there, especially in a run chase, but you can definitely lose it, and we lost it in the power play.” he said.
‘Need to adapt’
While GT batters are usually aggressive yet adaptable to the demands during a chase but lacked execution of plans against MI.
“We are a very good thinking batting unit. We’re not a conservative batting unit. You don’t go out and get 200s as often as we do being conservative. But they’re an adaptive batting unit. …they’ve got their roles and they play them and today they simply didn’t,” Hayden said.
“So the worry isn’t just today about the middle order. It’d be unfair to say that, they were going to go on and score 13 runs an over because by that stage, I felt like as a batting coach, I was on the mast and the boat was sinking.”