Matthew Hayden Points Out Gujarat Titans Batting Struggles in IPL 2026

Gujarat Titans faced an embarrassing defeat against Mumbai Indians in the recent IPL clash at Ahmedabad. Their batting took the main blame for a poor performance, as Mumbai Indians skittled them for just 100 runs inside 16 overs.

After the match, Gujarat Titans batting coach Matthew Hayden lamented the team’s poor batting performance. He said the middle order of the Titans was badly exposed by Mumbai’s attack, which is why they failed to chase the target.

"The middle order was undoubtedly exposed today. The thing about the powerplays 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 powerplay [Sai Sudharsan, Buttler and Gill were gone in 4.4 overs].” said Gujarat Titans batting coach, Matthew Hayden.

He further said that the middle order came under pressure due to the early collapse of the openers. It is one of those things the team needs to fix quickly, otherwise, batting will become difficult for them in the upcoming matches.

"We're putting a lot of pressure on our middle order. When you look at the way that you go about the middle order, go about preparation, it's vastly different to way the top three handle those preparations.” said Matthew Hayden.

“They are batting for impact. You know, when you send Shahrukh Khan there, I don't know the numbers, if you're getting seven balls and you're striking at 180, you're having a hell of a season. See, those numbers seem ridiculous if you're looking for aggregates and averages and all of those things." added Matthew Hayden.

The Gujarat Titans batting coach then urged the openers to take some responsibility, as it is their job to give the team a strong start in the Powerplay.

"The relevance behind balls faced when you look at, for example, someone like Glenn Phillips, his record in T20 cricket is an impressive strike rate and you'll take that all day long in the majority of games. However, you need an upfront batting effort where you consistently, as we usually do, having good problems to have, taking the lion's share of the batting.” said Matthew Hayden.