Rajasthan: Gujarat Titans (GT) are at a stage in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 where they should be happy with their position atop the points table, but at the same time, their loss in the last match will not leave them too impressed.
It is not often that a team with such fine form over two successive tournaments ends up a loser while chasing such a small target, that too at home and against opponents who are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Equally, their next rivals Rajasthan Royals (RR) won’t be too chuffed about losing their last match either, but they were against the most powerful batting line-up in the business. Still, it was a match that, with some focus, they could have won.
GT went down to Delhi Capitals (DC) in Ahmedabad chasing just 130 runs. Not one of their batters, including skipper Hardik Pandya, who got a half-century, was able to overcome the hold DC bowlers had on them throughout their effort. Leading the DC counter-attack after scoring just 30 runs was the old war horse Ishant Sharma, and he was not to be denied that night.
The GT bowlers wouldn’t be complaining. Mohammad Shami was at his best and Mohit Sharma has found new mojo. The rest too pulled their weight admirably, especially the spinners Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad.
Not the same can be said of the RR bowlers. One wonders how Jason Holder fits into their current scheme of things. He seems to have specialized in bowling knee-high full tosses and for a former international team skipper, defending 17 runs in the last over and being carted for three successive sixes is just not good enough. Three and a half overs for 55 runs. Any of the younger lots could have done better.
Yashasvi Jaiswal was in great nick as he registered a fine century when RR batted and in spite of none of the other batters breaching 20 runs, they still ended up with a good score.
This began to look defendable with Ravichandran Ashwin’s 2/27 off four overs, but the rest of the bowling wilted against the continuous assault from the MI batters and they lost.
The bright side for RR in their next match with GT would be that Gujarat’s batting is not as formidable. The same can be said for GT too. In fact, no other batting lineup can match up to MI presently.
So, that puts both teams on a more even keel and while Sanju Samson and Pandya need to find ways to mend some holes in their defences, there is enough in both camps to make it difficult for the rivals.
One cannot but expect quite a battle between Jaiswal and Shami. This could well be the duel that decides the result of this match.
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