Staff Reporter.
The Gujarat Titans secured their place in the play-offs in this year’s Tata IPL with a 34-run win against the struggling Sunrisers Hyderabad in Ahmedabad. Set 189 to win, the Sunrisers recovered from the loss of early wickets to reach 154/9 and thus be eliminated from the competition with two games still to play.
Having restricted the Titans to 188/9, the Sunrisers’ were in trouble early in their innings thanks to the consistent Mohammed Shami who took 3/17 in the powerplay which saw the Sunrisers reach 45/4. The fifty came in 6.5 overs but with six wickets down, it looked as though the Titans would wrap up proceedings easily.
Heinrich Klaasen had other ideas as he kept the flame of hope burning with an innings of 64 from 44 balls (4×4, 3×6), his second half-century of the competition, sharing an eighth wicket partnership of 68 with Bhuvneshwar Kumar who contributed a solid 27 from 26 balls. This was the only positive in a Sunrisers innings which never quite got out the blocks as the top order failed miserably.
Skipper Aiden Markram (10) and Mayank Markande (18*) were the only other batsmen to reach double figures in the face of tight and controlled bowling from the Titans. Shami finished with 4/21 in his four overs, well supported by Mohit Sharma with 4/28 in his four over spell. Yash Dayal, coming in as an impact player to replace Shubman Gill, took 1/31 in four overs. The Titans suffered a setback when young legspinner Noor Ahmad was struck on the ankle from a straight drive by Klaasen on the penultimate ball of his third over. He left the field to have ice placed on the bruise.
Earlier, the Titans innings was held together with a maiden IPL century from Gill who smashed 101 from 58 balls (13×4, 1×6), sharing a 147-run second wicket partnership with Sai Sudharsan (47) as the rest of the batsmen failed to reach double figures. It was a strong fightback from the Sunrisers’ bowlers who restricted the Titans to 34 runs in the last five overs while taking seven wickets.
Khumar finished with 5/30 in four overs, his second best IPL figures, thanks to a frenetic final over in the Titan’s innings which saw four wickets fall, three to Kumar and a run out. Marco Jansen, Fazalhaq Farooqi and Thangarasu Natarajan took a wicket apiece.
The Sunrisers replaced Natarajan with Anmolpreet Singh as an impact player to open the innings, but it was to no avail.
Gill was named Player of the Match.
GUJARAT TITANS: Saha, Gill, Sudharsan, Hardik, Miller, Shanaka, Tewatia, Rashid, Mohit, Shami, Noor. Subs: Dayal, Bharat, Nalkande, Kishore, Mavi.
SUNRISERS HYDERABAD: Abhsishek, Tripathi, Markram, Klaasen, Samad, Sanvir, Jansen, Markande, Bhuvneshwar, Farooqi, Natarajan. Subs: Anmolpreet, Philips, Hosein, Dagar, Reddy.