Mumbai:
After a three-over spell from Ravi Bishnoi in which he scalped four wickets, Gujarat Titans seemed to have been pushed well behind in their pursuit of 211 to win. Between overs 11-15, GT had lost six wickets, having lost only one in the first 10. At the start of the last five overs, they were down at 161/7. But batting line-ups armed with the Impact Sub rule are never ending. And with GT, given their history of pulling off heists, never rule them out.
Stand-in-captain Rashid Khan (24) and Kagiso Rabada (23*) kept finding late boundaries to keep them in the game. It came down to 11 required off the last over.
It could have been Sandeep Sharma or Nandre Burger. RR skipper Riyan Parag went with Tushar Deshpande and the former CSK pacer having mastered the art of death bowling in yellow held his nerves with yorker lengths to win them the game by six runs. RR’s last season of woes involved buckling under pressure in close matches. At Ahmedabad, in their second successive win of the season, they bucked the trend.
Before Bishnoi ran riot with the ball (4-0-41-4), in Shubman Gill’s neck spasm-induced absence, Sai Sudharsan raised his game, dominating the 78-run opening stand with Kumar Kushagra. For the first half of their innings, Sudharsan controlled the proceedings as RR bowlers struggled to contain.
Bishnoi seemed earmarked for GT’s overseas middle order pack. Working with angles and changes of speed, making the most of the longer square boundaries, Bishnoi got on a roll by dismissing Sudharsan (73), Glenn Philips (3) and Washington Sundar (4) in quick succession. Each of them failed in their attempts to pull the leg-spinner. Now, Bishnoi is anything but a conventional leg-spinner. But his masterful control over his googlies with the odd leg-break creates enough doubt in the batter’s mind. That doubt is what Bishnoi preys on.
Earlier, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Suryavanshi became the fastest Indian pair to 500 runs in the IPL during another Powerplay dominance. The two left-handers in pink were off to another flyer – 69/0 at Gujarat Titans’ home turf. The last time these two sides met, Suryavanshi had announced himself with a 35-ball hundred. A year older, the breakout star has also grown as a batter. To get Suryavanshi’s wicket, forcing him to hole out to the long boundary in the 7th over after he had played some sumptuous shots in his 18-ball 31, stand-in skipper Rashid Khan was mighty relieved.
There’s been so much focus around the 15-year-old sensation that even the India internationals – Jaiswal and Jurel who have come through the ranks by first impressing in the IPL for RR have been scarcely discussed. On Saturday, both of them came good on a belter of a Narendra Modi stadium pitch. Jaiswal matched Suryavanshi shot-for-shot in the early overs. Less flamboyant and more measured than his younger compatriot, Jaiswal becomes difficult to dislodge when he gets his timing right. If Jaiswal controlled the first half of the batting innings, Jurel took complete onus of the back-half.
There were moments in the middle overs and those leading up to the death when GT pacers threatened to apply breaks with wickets. Ashok Sharma impressed for the second match running and even bowled the fastest ball of the tournament clocking 154 kph on the speed gun. But they could never turn the screws completely and they had only themselves to blame.
There was a caught behind which GT failed to spot and appeal for. That would have made the 14th a double wicket over. Shimron Hetmyer made them pay with a 8-ball 18.
A juggling catch at the long on ropes which Mohammed Siraj failed to hold on to. Dhruv Jurel could have been out on 42 and that would have made the 17th a double wicket over. Jurel went on to score a 42-ball 75. Those mistakes proved to be costly.
