Shane Watson has admitted he is “extremely disappointed” with his recent form with the bat, but the Rajasthan Royals captain is confident big scores are just around the corner.
The all-rounder made just three runs from seven balls at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium on Friday night as his side secured a low-scoring four-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad.
That performance came on the back of a disappointing showing at the ICC World T20 in Bangladesh where he made four, two and one in the middle.
“I am very disappointed with the way that I’m batting at the moment,” he said. “I haven’t scored any runs in the last four innings that I’ve played which has been extremely disappointing. I haven’t been able to get through the start of my innings which is integral to my batting where I do to get my innings going.
“I’m extremely disappointed not to be able to score any runs over the last four games I’ve played but I also know how cricket works as well. You do unfortunately have some down times when things don’t go to plan, but also things can turn around pretty quickly as well.”
Watson added: “I’m not worried but I’m disappointed not to be able to contribute the way I know I can. But in the end as a captain the most important thing is us winning.”
Meanwhile, Watson’s opposite number Shikhar Dhawan was forced to defend the make-up of the Sunrisers batting line-up as they posted a sub-par total of 133.
Dhawan admitted that was 20 or 30 runs short on the Abu Dhabi pitch, but he does not feel his side need more aggressive hitters further down the order.
Aaron Finch was dismissed with the fifth ball of the match, while neither Dhawan nor David Warner managed to make half centuries despite both getting starts.
“We’ve got (Darren) Sammy down the order but unfortunately he couldn’t connect with the ball that well today. But I think we’ve got a better batting line-up than last year, and of course it’s just the first game so the momentum is going to grow and you will see even the middle order batsmen scoring more runs.”
