GT vs MI, IPL 2023 Highlights: Gujarat Titans thrash Mumbai Indians by 55 runs

Three runs off the third ball and one off the next. Good comeback from Tendulkar considering what happened in the last match. 

Here we go then! Shubman Gill and Wriddhiman Saha open for GT, Arjun Tendulkar has the ball in his hands for MI.

Wriddhiman Saha(w), Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya(c), Vijay Shankar, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Noor Ahmad, Mohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma(c), Ishan Kishan(w), Cameron Green, Suryakumar Yadav, Tim David, Nehal Wadhera, Kumar Kartikeya, Arjun Tendulkar, Riley Meredith, Piyush Chawla, Jason Behrendorff

“It (pitch) looks good, looks watery. It has been a belter though. The way we fought back, the last game we won but LSG dominated for 36 overs. Credit to the boys the way we came back. We showed what is never give up. Luck was on our side. We are playing the same team. Josh Little comes back for someone, that's it.”

“We are gonna bowl first. We saw the pitch, it was hard. They put a lot of water there. Want to make best use of the conditions. Start well early on and see where the game is heading. Games like that happen, we made some errors and we accepted that. It's important how you come back from that situation, that's critical. We had a good chat and hopefully we can turn things around. We've got 2 changes - Hrithik Shokeen misses out from the last game. Kumar Kartikeya is going to play. Jofra is not well. Riley is back.”

Rohit Sharma wins the toss, chooses to bowl. 

While there is an endless river of tributes flowing for Sachin Tendulkar as he turned 50 yesterday, his son Arjun had a bit of a chastening to deal with when he was smacked around by Sam Curran and Harpreet Singh. In MI's previous match against Punjab Kings, Tendulkar ended up conceding 31 runs in the 16th over. His over read 6, 1w, 4, 1, 4, 6, 5nb, 4. He had fairly good figures in the first two matches and so this was a bit of a reality check for the youngster. 

"I have been playing cricket for so long that wherever I go it feels like my home ground only," the leg-break bowler said on the eve of the match. "I have already played six years for Gujarat. It's a beautiful feeling to come back home but once you enter the field, you don't think about whether it is the home team or not. You want to put the best foot forward."

While their jailbreak in their previous game may say otherwise, the reality is that GT seem to have a problem of closing out games this season. Moreover, they have lost two of the three games this season they have played at home. In fact, the only times they have lost this year has been at home. 

Rohit Sharma(c), Ishan Kishan(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Cameron Green, Tim David, Tilak Varma, Hrithik Shokeen, Arjun Tendulkar, Jofra Archer, Piyush Chawla, Jason Behrendorff, Nehal Wadhera, Ramandeep Singh, Kumar Kartikeya, Shams Mulani, Vishnu Vinod, Riley Meredith, Sandeep Warrier, Duan Jansen, Tristan Stubbs, Dewald Brevis, Akash Madhwal, Arshad Khan, Raghav Goyal

Wriddhiman Saha(w), Shubman Gill, Vijay Shankar, Hardik Pandya(c), Abhinav Manohar, David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Noor Ahmad, Mohit Sharma, Jayant Yadav, Joshua Little, Shivam Mavi, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Srikar Bharat, Sai Sudharsan, Alzarri Joseph, Pradeep Sangwan, Matthew Wade, Dasun Shanaka, Odean Smith, Darshan Nalkande, Urvil Patel, Yash Dayal

It may have been a case of LSG pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory but GT would take a lot of encouragement from the fact that they stayed on the money even when the situation was seemingly hopeless and ended up winning. LSG were chasing just 136 runs and at one point, needed 30 to win off 30 balls with eight wickets in hand. At the crease was captain KL Rahul on 58 off 45 and the new batter at the other end owas Nicholas Pooran. Pooran fell shortly and Rahul decided to demonstrate just how overrated strike rates are, as he had famously said a couple of years back. The result was that be fell on 68 off 61 balls and was the first of four consecutive wickets to fall in the last over. LSG, lost quite extraordinarily by 7 runs. "We don't know what happened," is what Rahul had to say after the match, choosing to ignore the fact that his basic philosophy towards strike rate is at odds with the format in which he is captaining a team.

"The last win in Lucknow was a huge win for us. We have played very good cricket. We can improve certain areas. I don't think we need to be too concerned just yet. It is going to be a cracker of a game tomorrow."

Jofra Archer seems to have recovered from the elbow injury that kept him out for a couple of matches and so MI will now hope that he can work his way back to being at his best. Archer has been able to bowl just eight overs throughout the season and has taken just one wicket. 

MI's bowling attack has not had the best of times this season but Piyush Chawla himself seems to be bowling in a bit of a bubble of his own. The veteran has nine wickets in six games and he is now returning to the Narendra Modi Stadium, which has been his home ground in domestic cricket for many years. Gujarat Titans will have a challenge in their hands facing him. 

Both players are the first to win the IPL title in their very first season as captains. Rohit did it in 2013, Hardik did it last year. Moreover, there is the undertone of Harding being one of the most potent weapons in Rohit's all conquering MI team that won five IPL titles and being the de facto deputy to Rohit in the Indian limited overs sides. 

He is not in either of these two squads but there is no way the 2023 season of the IPL can be talked about at the moment without mentioning Ajinkya Rahane somehow. So the excuse of mentioning him here is that thoday, the former India Test vice-captain has been included in that team again from which he was dropped from so unceremoniously. Rahane is part of the Indian team for the WTC final against Australia which will take place after the IPL. Right, let's take a look at the numbers this player who was pigeon-holed as a Test batter has stacked up this season, shall we? 208 runs scored in five matches at a ridiculous strike rate of 199.04 and average of 52.05. Utterly incredible.

Rohit Sharma has provided Mumbai Indians with good starts this season but even he has admitted that it would be nice if he can convert those into big scores. His scores read 1, 21, 65, 20, 28 and 44, which are not bad at all but when you are Rohit Sharma, this is less than the bare minimum that is expected.

GT: Wriddhiman Saha(w), Shubman Gill, Vijay Shankar, Hardik Pandya(c), Abhinav Manohar, David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Noor Ahmad, Mohit Sharma, Jayant Yadav, Joshua Little, Shivam Mavi, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Srikar Bharat, Sai Sudharsan, Alzarri Joseph, Pradeep Sangwan, Matthew Wade, Dasun Shanaka, Odean Smith, Darshan Nalkande, Urvil Patel, Yash Dayal

MI: Rohit Sharma(c), Ishan Kishan(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Cameron Green, Tim David, Tilak Varma, Hrithik Shokeen, Arjun Tendulkar, Jofra Archer, Piyush Chawla, Jason Behrendorff, Nehal Wadhera, Ramandeep Singh, Kumar Kartikeya, Shams Mulani, Vishnu Vinod, Riley Meredith, Sandeep Warrier, Duan Jansen, Tristan Stubbs, Dewald Brevis, Akash Madhwal, Arshad Khan, Raghav Goyal

Hello and good afternoon everyone! Welcome to our live coverage of today's IPL 2023 match between GT and MI, straight from Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.