Prasidh Krishna, Sai Sudharsan sparkle as Gujarat Titans roll over Mumbai Indians on black-soil Ahmedabad pitch
Gujarat Titans’ choice to pick a blacksoil sluggish track for the game paid off as Mumbai Indians couldn’t adapt, and lost steam in the chase.
Gujarat Titans’ assistant coach Parthiv Patel mentioned during the first innings that it was a deliberate choice from his team to choose a black-soil pitch in Ahmedabad that is on the slower side where the ball can stop a touch as Mumbai Indians, he felt, were more used to red-soil tracks. With the ball not coming on, Mumbai would struggle more than their team. He was proved right as the wheels came off the chase in the second half as the 197-run target proved 36 runs beyond them.
Prasidh sparkles
The timeout at the end of the eight over of the chase triggered rather interesting scenes. MI were 69 for 2. Unsurprisingly, GT coach Ashish Nehra was out there, jabbering away passionately to Kagiso Rabada and Prasidh Krishna. Surprisingly, MI’s Rohit Sharma, who had lost his off stump to a peach of a scrambled offcutter from Mohammad Siraj, was out there chatting with Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Verma.
Rohit kept looking at the scorecard and telling them something; one could only lip read “barwaan over” (12th over). In the next 3 overs, Mumbai controlled the chase and nerves really well, taking 28 runs without much risk, sweeping the spinners. In the 12th over, despite Surya’s plea to take deep breaths and calm down, Tilak went for a big hoick against the slower one from Prasidh and holed out at wide long on. Soon, Robin Minz fell, squirting Sai Kishore to short third and the equation at that point read 89 from 42 balls. Doable, but this is where Mumbai succumbed to black soil devilry and GT’s superbly disciplined bowling.
Partnership broken 👊
Prasidh Krishna outsmarts Tilak Varma to put #GT on 🔝
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In the next time out, where Nehra was being Nehraji, the equation read 85 from 36 balls. Just prior to that, Prasidh had given just 6 runs from his two overs, seizing control for his team. The pressure showed on Hardik on resumption, who got into a faceoff with Sai Kishore, saying words and walking across to stare down the spinner, who didn’t back away and maintained eye contact.
Hardik kept struggling for touch, eking out just one single in four balls in the 16th over as Prasidh kept mixing up the pace while hitting right areas. And kept off strike, Suryakumar was sucked in by a lovely slower cutter from Prasidh, holing out to longoff. Hardik could never find his touch and fell, chopping a slower bouncer from Rabada to short third where Siraj managed to hold on. Game over.
Sudharsan’s priceless knock
It was Sai Sudharsan’s 63 which set the base for GT reaching almost 200. He knew that powerplay was the phase to get the runs and did it skillfully. Sudharsan ran down the track to Trent Boult but held his shape well, and creamed the full ball along the carpet to the straight boundary. But it was a fine wristy clip in the same over that stood out more. It was a slower knuckleball but somehow, Sudharsan found timing with an orthodox leg-side clip, a tuck shot if you will, and the ball plumetted to the midwicket boundary. To do that to a pace-off delivery with that kind of a shot showed the timing he can produce when on song. And so it wasn’t a surprise when Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, the carrom-ball spinner, offered some width outside off in the fifth over.
𝐒𝐚𝐢 𝐒𝐮per start 🔝
Sai Sudharsan’s second consecutive 5⃣0⃣* keeps #GT in control 💪
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Again, Sudharsan didn’t try to cut it hard, but instead tapped it between cover and mid-off for a fine four. Next ball was fuller, and it was thrown back from long-off stands. He would slow down after powerplay or rather not get enough strike; at one point in six overs after the powerplay, Sudharsan had played just 10 balls. And on it went for a few more overs before he regained the strike and his touch. He upper-cut and swiped Satyanarayana Raju for a four and a six before he was trapped lbw by a Trent Boult yorker in the 18th over.
Pandya, the bowler, shines
Unlike his loss of composure as a batsman and struggles to adapt to the pitch, Hardik the bowler had assessed the pitch perfectly, slowed his pace, hit the pitch to make it grip and stop; and as ever, didn’t flinch from trying out bouncers now and then to surprise the batsmen. He had come to bowl in the 7th over, just after his bowlers had leaked 35 runs in the previous two. There was a time out before he brought himself, and interestingly he was seen chatting with his previous team’s coach Nehra.
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His first three were all pace-off deliveries, one of them a bouncer. Just 5 runs came in that over. Off the third ball of his next, ninth of the innings, he seemed to bowl his first full-pace delivery and it was a bouncer at that. Shubman Gill didn’t opt for the full-fledged pull but off his front foot, tried to guide it almost but picked up the fielder at deep square-leg. Hardik stood at the end of his follow-through with a big grin, and he kept looking at Gill.
Hardik Pandya has the last laugh! 💪
The #MI captain wins another mini-battle, this time against Shahrukh Khan 👏
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He returned later for the 16th over and started with a just-outside-off slower bouncer that Shahrukh Khan pulled for a six. Hardik’s reaction said much: he gestured that he should have got that further outside off. And so he slipped his next slower bouncer, in the third ball of the over, exactly how he wanted and Shahrukh had to reach out for the carve and holed up at sweeper cover. Again, a blissful smile settled on Hardik’s visage.
But it would all be wiped off during the chase as his former team aced the conditions.
Brief scores: Gujarat Titans 196/8 (Sai Sudharsan 63, Hardik Pandya 2/29) bt Mumbai Indians (Suryakumar Yadav 48, Prasidh Krishna 2/18) by 36 runs
