By Neil Manthorp.
Shubman Gill’s 67 from 49 balls anchored the Gujarat Titans to a thrilling, 6-wicket victory against the Punjab Royals in their IPL match at the IS Bindra Stadium in Mohali on Thursday evening.
The defending champions produced a brilliant bowling and fielding display to restrict Punjab to a distinctly modest total of 153-8 after choosing to bowl first but the run-chase became unexpectedly tense in the final over with four required from the final two deliveries.
Rahul Tewatia, however, went down on one knee to sweep a full length delivery from Sam Curran over short fine leg to win the game with a ball to spare.
Gill’s pacing had been perfect with seven fours and a six but when Curran bowled him with a yorker with four balls to go in the final over, suddenly a routine victory became a nail-biter. David Miller’s unbeaten 17 from 18 balls contributed a great deal to the win.
Earlier Gujarat’s five bowlers delivered a remarkable 56 dot-balls against a Punjab batting line-up which failed to ignite until the final couple of overs.
Opener Prahsimran Singh (0) whipped the second ball of the match from Mohammad Shami straight to midwicket and captain Shikhar Dhawan (8) gained a leading edge to Irish seamer Josh Little to Alzarri Joseph at mid on.
Australian Matthew Short was the only batter to look comfortable on a good pitch but his combative 36 from 24 balls (6×4, 1×6) was ended by master legspinner Rashid Khan whose fast googly crashed into the right hander’s stumps.
Jitesh Sharma (25 from 23 balls) struggled to get going before edging Mohit Sharma to ‘keeper Wriddhiman Saha and Sri Lankan Bhanuka Rajapaksa was even less fluent with a painful 20 from 26 balls (1×4) before heaving a Joseph delivery to deep midwicket.
Curran (22 from 22 balls) slog-swept Rashid (1-26) for a six in his final over before mis-hitting a slow bouncer from Mohit to the midwicket boundary but Shahrukh Khan finally showed the urgency in the final couple which had been lacking for most of the innings. He hooked his first delivery from Shami for six and added a second maximum two balls later.
Shahrukh was run out by Miller in the final over for a breezy 22 from nine balls while Mohit, playing his first game for the Gujarat franchise, was the pick of the bowlers with 2-18 from his four overs.
The Titans victory moved them into a share of the log lead with three wins from four games alongside the Rajasthan Royals and the Lucknow Super Giants.
PUNJAB KINGS: Prabhsimran Singh, Shikhar Dhawan (captain), Matthew Short, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Jitesh Sharma (wkt), Sam Curran, Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar, Kagiso Rabada, Rishi Dhawan, Arshdeep Singh
GUJARAT TITANS: Wriddhiman Saha (wkt), Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan, Hardik Pandya (captain), David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Alzarri Joseph, Mohammed Shami, Mohit Sharma, Joshua Little.