Matthew Hayden was one of the most destructive batters in world cricket during his playing career, but the current Gujarat Titans batting coach would prefer his top three’s consistency over the Vaibhav Sooryavanshi carnage. Hayden made the comments during the press conference after GT’s thumping win over RR in Jaipur on Saturday, May 9.
RR vs GT: HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD
During the game, Sooryavanshi scored 36 runs off 16 balls to give RR the initial take-off, but was dismissed in the third over. At the same time, Sai Sudharsan and Shubman Gill scored fifties and put on a 118-run stand in 65 balls. Gill batted till the 17th over, scoring 84 off 44 balls.
Hayden said that while it was exciting to see a talent like Sooryavanshi and his blistering cameos, in a 200-plus chase, batting deep is very important.
The GT batting coach praised the trinity of Gill, Sudharsan and Buttler for constantly going at a 150 strike-rate in the tournament and playing Test and ODI-type cricket rather than being swayed by the pull of explosive batting.
“Well, tonight was a good example, right, of an exciting young talent in Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. He batted, got 30 runs at a strike rate of 300. But when you’re chasing 220 odd, you need to bat longer and deeper. So the advantage that we have is that we get players, like the top three that you mentioned, who are striking at 150.
“Let me tell you as a batter, that is really hard, and they’re doing it for a long period of time, they’re constantly getting into the back half of the game, not just batting inside the powerplay. They’re going right through with their fitness and their ability to be able to really play Test match-type cricket, and ODI cricket in particular.”
“So, I love the fact that we’re going about constructing in innings. Tonight, where we’re setting a target, which is a different challenge for us, we’ve had a number of totals in that sort of 160 range. Which I would back our batting to get through any day of the week, so it was nice tonight to have that bit of a challenge against an X factor team like Rajasthan Royals, and to come out on top was really important for us,” said Hayden.
Gill has a strike-rate of 160.41, while Buttler strikes at 151.96 this season. Sudharsan has 440 runs this season with a strike-rate of 157.70.
The win propelled GT into the second spot, while RR slipped out of the top four.
IPL 2026 | IPL Schedule | IPL Points Table | IPL Player Stats | Purple Cap | Orange Cap | IPL Videos | Cricket News | Live Score
– Ends