Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill was pleased that his team didn’t get carried away in a modest chase on a tricky pitch. Chasing 164 to win against table-toppers Punjab Kings at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, GT got over the line off the penultimate ball of their innings.
Gill, whose team had now won their last three games, reckoned it was the kind of wicket where one could not finish the match real quick. “I think in chases like these, we would have liked not to take it as deep as it went, but we got two crucial points,” Gill said after the match.
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Gujarat Titans kept losing wickets at regular intervals. When Rahul Tewatia got out off the last ball of the 17th over, with 24 runs still needed to win and five wickets in hand, it appeared PBKS might now be able to tighten the screws on their opponents, but India allrounder Washington Sundar stood in their way. Gill credited his all-rounder for not disappointing the team at a crucial moment.
Sundar batted at No.5 and remained unbeaten on 40 off 23 balls as GT took the contest by four wickets. On a difficult wicket, the left-hander struck at a very impressive strike rate of 173.91, the highest from the GT team. He smashed five fours and a six during his innings.
Sundar equal to the task!
“This is not the kind of wicket where we’ll chase in 15-16 overs. So we thought maybe one over before or a couple of overs before. That was the talk. If someone is set, they should go deep because it’s not easy to hit from ball one.
“Length balls weren’t coming the way they do on other wickets. It was important for the batsman who was set… Luckily, we had Washi [Washington Sundar], and he finished the game for us,” Gill said.
GT have now claimed some big fishes in their last few games. In their previous two games, they had beaten Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Chennai Super Kings.
Even though Sunday’s win didn’t lead to any movement for them on the points table — as they remained fifth — it did their play-offs chances a world of good. It was their sixth win in 10 games. Now they play Rajasthan Royals on Saturday, and they would love to maintain their winning streak, wouldn’t they?