Gill and Shami seal top-two end for Titans

May 15, 2023 at 9:11 PM
Gill and Shami seal top-two end for Titans

Gujarat Titans 188 for 9 (Gill 101, Sudharsan 47, Bhuvneshwar 5-30) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 154 for 9 (Klaasen 64, Shami 4-21, Mohit 4-28) by 34 runs

Gujarat Titans stormed to a top-two end for the second time in a row with a 34-run win in opposition to Sunrisers Hyderabad in Ahmedabad on Monday. With 18 factors from 13 matches, the defending champions are the primary group to seal a playoff berth, en route knocking Sunrisers out of the rivalry.

Shubman Gill‘s maiden IPL hundred and Sai Sudharsan’s 47 propelled Titans to 188 for 9 after being put into bat. That set the stage for Mohammed Shami, Yash Dayal and Mohit Sharma to set off a Sunrisers collapse very early within the chase and that was principally that. Despite Heinrich Klaasen’s preventing fifty, an excessive amount of was left too late to chase down.

It was additionally an evening when pacers referred to as the pictures, accounting for 17 of the 18 wickets to fall on the red-soil pitch at Motera Stadium. Bhuvneshwar Kumar was one amongst them, who shone the brightest by taking a five-wicket haul, nevertheless, it wasn’t sufficient for Sunrisers who now don’t have anything to play for however their very own wounded delight.

Gill and Sudharsan flip it on

Wriddhiman Saha’s keep was short-lived as he nicked an outswinger from Bhuvneshwar to be out for a duck off the third ball of the innings. From there on, it was the Gill-Sudharsan present because the duo placed on 149 runs for the second wicket. Barring them, not one of the Titans’ batters even touched double-figures.

Both Gill and Sudharsan’s innings have been stuffed with fours – 13 to the centurion and 6 to the just about half-centurion. They hit ten fours within the powerplay with 4 of them coming back-to-back within the fourth over bowled by left-arm fast Fazalhaq Farooqi. A pull, a short-arm jab, a canopy drive, a scoop, you identify it, Gill performed it.

From 65 for 1 after six overs, the whole touched 100 within the subsequent 4 because the Titans stored accelerating. Interestingly, the primary six of the innings got here solely within the eleventh over, off Sudharsan’s bat when he scooped left-arm seamer Marco Jansen over wonderful leg.

Having reached his first fifty, with 9 fours and no sixes, in 22 balls, Gill slowed down a bit, needing 34 extra to deliver up his hundred.

Sudharsan, who changed Vijay Shankar to play his first match in nearly a month, regarded strong when it comes to approach, discovering gaps and placing away free balls. He did, nevertheless, profit from two dropped catches.

Five-star Bhuvneshwar

It all started within the fifteenth over bowled by Jansen, who had missed Sunrisers’ previous couple of video games. By that point, the left-arm pacer had conceded 32 runs in his three overs and had bowled 4 wides and two no-balls. Yet Aiden Markram backed him and the bowler repaid that religion. He dismissed Sudharsan along with his first supply of the over when Natarajan ran from backward level and took a superb catch.

In the subsequent over, Bhuvneshwar had Hardik Pandya caught at backward level. Natarajan got here on for the seventeenth over and he picked up the wicket of David Miller. It was then Farooqi’s flip to dismiss the IPL debutant Dasun Shanaka.

Then got here the ultimate over the place Bhuvneshwar went W, W, W, 1, W, 1b to shut issues out. He scalped three wickets and effected a run-out to complete with a superb determine of 5 for 30.

Titans strangle SRH upfront

Sunrisers could not deal with the tempo of Shami, Dayal and Mohit, who mixed to take all 9 wickets that fell within the chase. In the primary over, Anmolpreet Singh top-edged a back-of-the-length ball and was caught by Rashid Khan, working throughout from deep third. In the second, Dayal induced an outdoor edge to ship Abhishek Sharma again. Then got here steaming scorching Shami who was too good for each Rahul Tripathi and Aiden Markram. At that stage, he appeared nearly unplayable – three wickets for 5 runs in 10 balls.

Sunrisers’ 29 for 4 grew to become 59 for 7 when Mohit picked up three wickets in his first two overs.

Klaasen, the lone warrior

Losing common wickets on the different finish did not cease Klaasen from searching for fast runs. In an in any other case forgettable season for Sunrisers’ batters, the South African was the one one to cross the 300-run mark this season. On Monday, although he began patiently by scoring 23 off his first 18 deliveries, he took the assault in opposition to Noor Ahmad, smashing two sixes and a boundary off his bowling to up the ante. He bought to his second fifty of the season in 35 balls. The solely notable partnership for the guests was the one for the eighth wicket between Klaasen (64) and Bhuvneshwar (27) as they stitched 68 runs off 47 deliveries.

Srinidhi Ramanujam is a sub-editor with ESPNcricinfo