Vettori defends dropping Gayle in match against Pune

Bengaluru: Royal Challengers Bangalore head coach Daniel Vettori has defended the dropping of Chris Gayle to bring in Shane Watson in his side’s IPL match against Rising Pune Supergiant, saying he felt his team was a bowler short in the earlier matches.

“After the Mumbai Indians game, we thought we had a bowler short and Watson gives us the opportunity as he is a proven performer with both bat and ball. He has been a wonderful Twenty20 all-rounder and we decided to back Watson for his all-round skills, Vettori said after RCB lost to RPS by 27 runs here last night.

Watson failed miserably both with the bat and ball. He conceded 44 runs in his four overs and made 14 while batting as he fell to Ben Stokes at a crucial stage of the match.

Vettori said conceding far too many runs in the final couple of overs after bowling tightly in the earlier 18 overs brought a lot of pressure on the team.

“We bowled tightly in the first 18 overs but went away with the plan in the last two overs which cost us 30 runs. It was 15 runs too many and that put us under immense pressure,” Vettori said.

On low-scoring nature of Chinnaswamy wicket so far, Vettori said it, however, made for entertaining cricket.

“The Chinnaswamy wicket has not been a bad one for T20s.

It has been exciting for the bowlers. All the matches here have been entertaining. It is different and we need to adapt.

We have not been able to mirror the performance we had against Delhi Daredevils,” Vettori said.