Gujarat Titans' middle-order batter David Miller believes that different players in the side delivering for them in important stages of IPL 2022 has been the chief reason behind their success in the tournament. In their debut season of IPL, the Hardik Pandya-led side became the first team to qualify for the playoffs, winning nine out of 12 matches.
"It has been a really good season, I've managed to play a string of games together and try and get some a successful format together, just sticking to my blueprint and giving myself the best chance, I've been putting my hand up when I needed to," said Miller in a pre-match chat with broadcasters Star Sports.
"As a team we have won games we shouldn't have won, and in this tournament, it goes a long way when you've won a few like that and we've won about four of those. We've all put our hands up at different, important stages of the game and that's probably been the success for us this season as a team," added Miller.
Miller has been one of the mainstays for Gujarat in the middle-order and playing a finishing hand alongside Rahul Tewatia. In IPL 2022, Miller is trying to give himself the best chance to finish matches for Gujarat.
"You live and you learn is the first lesson, you make many, many mistakes over your career, but I think it is just about being in the moment and really giving yourself the best chance to actually perform, no point giving your wicket away early doors, you can't score runs watching from the sidelines. For me particularly, it is about giving myself the best chance and at the end we've seen many times in this game anything is possible to chase down."
Asked about his mantra of acing tight chases for Gujarat, Tewatia remarked, "While chasing, we know the runs required, we target specific bowlers and go all out in those overs, and one good aspect has been having a set batter with me, so it gives me the confidence to take more risks."
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"While chasing, we know the runs required, we target specific bowlers and go all out in those overs, and one good aspect has been having a set batter with me, so it gives me the confidence to take more risks."
Miller stated that Gujarat won't take their rest of the matches lightly, starting from the one against Chennai Super Kings on Sunday despite sealing their IPL Playoffs spot. "It is very valid question because we have done very well, I think the next two games we want to finish top two on the table and remain with our confidence high, it is really important to finish the group stages in the top two, and stick to what has worked for us- keeping things simple, playing as a team and just enjoying ourselves."
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Tewatia, too, agreed with Miller's views on not being complacent in the business end of the league stage. "From the beginning, our theory has been one game at a time, we are focusing on the processes more, results will automatically follow. Today too we don't want to take it lightly since we've qualified, all games are big and we'll prepare the same way."
