B Sai Sudharsan had waited a fortnight for a proper hit; on Friday night in Bengaluru he finally cashed in, compiling 100 from 58 balls against Royal Challengers Bengaluru. The left-hander, last season’s Orange Cap holder, looked in control from the start, yet Gujarat Titans still slipped to defeat – their second in a row – and the conversation soon turned to the pace of his closing overs and the support cast around him.
“He’s one of the guys that needed to step up his aggression level. For the most part of that innings, I thought [he] was outstanding for a very orthodox player,” Ian Bishop noted on the TimeOut show. “I think that hundred would be very, very pleasing for him and for the GT dug-out, and for the IPL as a whole, because here’s another guy who gets another hundred – they’ve been coming in thick and fast in the last week and a half, hasn’t it?
“He certainly did his part. If we’re asking other guys that should have stepped up, at least Sai Sudarshan did his part.”
The numbers back Bishop up – Sudharsan’s strike-rate finished at 172.41 – yet there was a lull. Moving from 82 to 100 took him 12 deliveries, between overs 13 and 15, a period that allowed RCB’s attack a breather. He fell next ball, leaving the under-fire middle order to accelerate. Jason Holder managed 23* off ten, respectable stuff, but Jos Buttler and Washington Sundar both hovered in the 150s and the total felt a touch light on a Chinnaswamy surface that stayed true.
Dale Steyn, also on the panel, preferred to focus on Sudharsan’s method. “I just think he plays orthodox cricket, you know, like he plays good cricket shots; he hits the ball on merit,” he said. “He takes the ball on when he has to, he makes calculated risks and it’s not like he’s running out there recklessly, swinging off his hip to try and score runs. [It was] similar to the way that [Sanju] Samson got his hundred the other night.
“I think it’s calculated, you know, he knows exactly how and where he wants to score his runs and then he put on a show.”
For all that, Bishop flagged the limits to Sudharsan’s tempo. “What I would say is, he has his limitations, right? I wouldn’t put him in the class of, let’s say, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi or Abhishek Sharma. He’s not that guy,” he said. “He does what he does. A hundred off 58 deliveries? Sanju got his 101 off 54 deliveries. So he does a particular job. I’m not classifying him with the Travis Heads and the Abhishek Sharmas.
“What they have to do with him is the other guys around him, the Jos Butlers, the Washington Sundars, have to come in and strike at, maybe, 160, 170 and above alongside Sai Sudharsan, whose game is improving. The team ethos has to be slightly different than maybe one or two of the other line-ups around.”
That, then, is Gujarat’s puzzle. Sudharsan has proved again he can anchor and up the rate, but he may never be the 200-strike-rate finisher. Titans need someone – or several someones – to bridge that gap. Until they do, even tidy centuries risk ending up on the losing side.
