Ahmedabad, May 22 (IANS) Gujarat Titans’ leg‑spin bowling all-rounder Rashid Khan said defending a total as high as 230 inevitably invites aggression from opposition batters, stressing that his focus remained on making it ‘super hard and tougher’ for them to find boundaries by sticking to the right line and length.

At the Narendra Modi Stadium, Rashid picked 3-18, including outclassing Shivam Dube, as GT thrashed Chennai Super Kings by 89 runs to secure a top two finish in the points table. “In this game, when you’re defending 230, you will go for runs. It’s not something like you’re going to bowl 18 to 20 dot balls.

“Winning nine games out of 14 is a great feeling for the team. Overall, we have a great percentage of winning games. It is just about keeping things simple. We are not here to think about being top four or top two, but things will come as long as you keep it simple.

“The batter is going after you, but for you as a bowler, one thing is how I’m going to make it super hard and tougher for him to hit that ball for a boundary. I felt like on the first ball I bowled to him (Dube) – he hit that six – it was just an easy ball for him.

“But ‘let me just try to bowl a harder one away from him and see how it goes’. For that length, line was so important. In such a game, the batters have no option but to go after the bowler. That’s why we practise so that mentally and physically we are ready for any condition,” said Rashid at the conclusion of the game.

He also said the key to his success as a bowler has been learning to manage himself on bad days in the same way he does on good ones. “You have good days, bad days, and I feel (the way) you manage yourself on good days, you have to know how to manage yourself on bad days as well.

“Whenever I had a bad day, I never put that too much in the mind. That gives me so much learning, and that’s why we keep getting better because we keep learning. And if you keep doing well, you don’t have any bad days, I don’t think so, you can learn a lot.

Currently at fourth place in the IPL 2026 wicket-taking charts, Rashid stressed on the importance of consistently hitting the ball in the right areas. “On that day in 2019 (against England in the ODI World Cup), it was one of the days for me where I gave more than 100 runs in nine overs, and then I think you can’t change much. You know everything remains the same.

“You can’t really change your action or pace, but it’s just about the one thing you can do: hit the right area consistently. I feel like in that game I just missed my line and length. And I just kept myself little bit focused (after that) on how I am going to hit the right area consistently.

“And regardless of what comes in the result, I never change my practice. Keep doing that hard work. If I do well, if I don’t do well, I know what makes me a better bowler and what makes me a better bowler is to hit the right area consistently. And that’s something which is key, especially nowadays when batters straightaway go after you.

“End of the day, when you go back to a room and you see your pitch map – that matters to me the most. So every game I play I ask the video analyst to send me the pitch map and I see where I pitch the maximum deliveries and what I can do better. If I miss my line, why did I miss it? So I just work on that. I don’t really think about what came up in the result,” he concluded.

–IANS

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