'I was an IPL newbie and they had more trust in me'- R Sai Kishore on playing under Hardik Pandya, Ashish Nehra in Gujarat Titans

Emerging spinner R Sai Kishore has shared his experience of playing under the watchful eyes of Hardik Pandya and former India pacer Ashish Nehra for the new entrants Gujarat Titans in IPL 2022. Gujarat not only finished as the table-toppers but also went on to bag their maiden title earlier this year.

Terming Pandya and Nehra as ‘genuine’, Sai Kishore said that the captain-coach duo regularly communicated with him throughout the tournament. At the same time, the spinner also had a special mention for the combined team efforts and combinations during the two-month competition and also explained how his weaknesses were minimized.

The players Gujarat trusted and picked performed extremely well: R Sai Kishore

“The wickets in Mumbai were great and playing another spinner didn’t make sense. I was an IPL newbie and they had more trust in me after I played two games. Ashish Nehra is a very [different] level human being; he’s a very genuine guy. Hardik is also a very genuine guy. It was clearly communicated to me what they had in their heads. You need to think about the team when you’re not playing, and it went well,” Sai Kishore told Sportskeeda.

“The players Gujarat trusted and picked performed extremely well, so weaknesses were minimized. The team was very well led by Hardik and when you have proper five bowlers, the combination is superb. You just need to score 160-170 runs and you know that the bowlers will defend it. I am a big fan of those teams that have five proper bowlers. The strategy worked really well for us. Four bowlers bowling 145 and the fifth was Rashid Khan. The batting clicked and therefore it was sorted,” he added.

R Sai Kishore got to play only five matches in IPL 2022 where he finished with six wickets. He was benched for the initial few games of the season. It now remains to be seen whether the budding cricketer would be retained by the defending champions in the next season.