IPL 2025: Tried to bowl in good area after missing my usual line and length, says Rashid Khan

Rashid said his endeavour during the match at the Narendra Modi Stadium was to bowl in a good area after admitting to missing his usual line and length. “If you work hard, you always get positive results. It was a difficult wicket to bowl for either a pacer or spinner. But we enjoyed it a lot as a bowling unit and as a player.”

"There is a lot of expectation from everyone. You have to do well in every match. If you are not good in one or two matches, there is a lot of expectations from people that this shouldn't be happening. I have played 126 matches in the IPL. So, sometimes you want to do something, but it doesn't happen and you don't get a good result.

"I forgot my previous matches and the mistakes I made. I sat with sandy bhai and video analyst, as well as analysing with the coaches. I was just missing my usual line and length. It's not like I was physically fit; I was mentally fit. But in the last two matches, I was trying to bowl in a good area. The more I bowled, the better it was for me and the team," said Rashid to left-arm pacer Kulwant Khejroliya in a video on iplt20.com.

Rashid also hit a cameo of 12 with the bat, as GT posted 217/6. He attributed his batting success to practising for it consistently, with some backing coming from head coach Ashish Nehra.

"To be honest, my batting has started to come good when I came to GT. The reason is that I get more opportunities to work on my batting skills. Also, thanks to Ashish Bhai. He gave me the trust that I can bat for the team. I practice my shots and I back it up in the match. I practice and work hard on my batting. If I get a ball in my area, I will try to finish matches."

Khejroliya got to be GT’s impact player and took 1/29. He revealed Nehra had been telling him to be ready as his chance could come anytime. "First of all, let me tell you that I wasn’t in the 15 man squad for this game. But for the last couple of days, Ashu bhai was telling me to be ready for playing at any time.

"Because sometimes, in a warm-up, if a player gets injured, you have to be ready. So, before the match, I was ready to play. But as soon as the toss happened, bhaiya told me that I was in the 15 and I had to play.

"So, that was the preparation that I was doing for the last 10-15 days, I got a chance, so I felt good to have a chance at playing after two seasons. I had been telling (Mohammed) Siraj, Nishant (Sindhu) and everyone else that I will play the match. You can ask them," he said.