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Mohit’s four-for seals it for GT after Saha, Shubman sparkle
Saha’s 81 and Gill’s 94 set up the big total of the IPL champions and LSG lose by 56 runs after being left to do too much in final overs despite de Kock’s 70.
The moment substitute Prerak Mankad grabbed a smart running catch, Avesh Khan gave a pat on Wriddhiman Saha’s back. It's not often that the bowler’s immediate reaction after a dismissal is to compliment the batter, but that’s just how good Saha’s knock was in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
A beautiful 43-ball 81 from Saha, his fastest IPL fifty, and Shubman Gill taking over equally elegantly with an unbeaten 94 (51b), set up Gujarat Titans’ (GT) 56-run victory over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).
Chasing 228, the Krunal Pandya-led visitors, up against the quality bowling unit of the side led by brother Hardik, could only get as far as 171/7 riding a two-man batting show of Kyle Mayers (48 – 32b) and Quinton de Kock (70 – 41b). Mohit Sharma, with his slower deliveries halting LSG's charge and getting four wickets, was the pick of the bowlers.
The afternoon was all about an exhibition of classical batting in the sport’s slam-bang version. Saha's boundary rush may have begun with a streaky edge, but it wasn't long before his pulls and drives put a dagger through LSG's bowling.
The pull shot especially was lethal, helping an Avesh short ball for six between the keeper and fine leg while also fetching left-armer Mohsin Khan’s bumper from outside off to beyond the square leg boundary. And when Mohsin went around the wicket, Saha drove him on the up over long-off in a 22-run fourth over.
Such was Saha's dominance that in his 20-ball fifty brought up with a whack over long-on, 48 runs came in boundaries. Gill, more a spectator to the Saha spectacle in the 78-run Powerplay, ended it with a six over fine leg.
With his all-Indian frontline attack — Naveen-ul-Haq made way for de Kock’s first game of the season — taking a hammering, Krunal was compelled to go to Mayers and Marcus Stoinis, who too leaked 16 and 20 runs respectively.
Gill targetted Ravi Bishnoi in the ninth over, creaming his leg spin over cover and googly straight back for sixes (his 29-ball 50 had four sixes, no fours). After the 142-run partnership was broken by Avesh Khan at the start of the 13th over, LSG found some breathing space to slip in relatively quieter overs. Not quite enough though to prevent Hardik's momentum-carrying 15-ball 25 and Gill's continued charge — his six off the first ball in the last over took him to 93 before he ran out of balls and gas for a hundred — that helped GT post 227/2.
With KL Rahul injured, Mayers and de Kock gave LSG a solid platform. Save the first over, they found at least two boundaries every over in the powerplay. Hardik went for three fours in a row and Mohammed Shami for 19 runs in his second over. Mayers was bludgeoning deliveries in his hitting arc and de Kock was manufacturing boundaries behind the wicket. Even Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad, GT's wrist-spinning trump cards brought out early, weren't spared as LSG raced to 72 in six overs.
Mayers, dropped on 25 by Rashid, was done in by the same man's catching brilliance and Mohit’s clever change of pace. Running diagonally and 26m from fine leg, Rashid slid, stretched both hands and grabbed the ball.
With the 88-run stand broken in the ninth over, GT stitched a five-over spell from the 10th, conceding just 28 runs and removing Deepak Hooda and Stoinis, deceived by Mohit’s slower one. With De Kock's free-flowing shots also arrested, he was bowled by Rashid to end the 16th over with LSG still needing 88. Mohit’s back-to-back dismissals of Ayush Badoni and Krunal took care of that.
