Till now Gujarat Titans was the only team in the tournament to remain invincible. Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Gujarat Titans by eight wickets. Fortunately for SRH, Captain Kane Williamson has decided to take conventional approach. However, in a high scoring chase, how effective it will be, is uncertain.
In this match, Gujarat Titans made a number of mistakes. First and foremost was wrong assessment of batting approach. Captain Hardik Pandya played till the last ball and failed to accelerate the scoring rate. In previous matches, we have seen other players doing well in similar situation.
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Gujarat’s most successful batsman Shubman Gill returned to the pavilion in the third over. He tried to accelerate too early which wasn’t ideal shot at the moment. With this, Gujarat’s batting weakened. Subhuman Gill performed consistently for the Gujarat Titans as the team heavily relied on him.
Gujarat Titans failed to build key partnerships throughout the innings. This also affected the innings of captain Hardik and he scored the slowest half-century of his IPL career. Apart from Abhinav Manohar 35, no batsman could support Hardik and the Gujarat team could not make a big score. Chasing 163 runs at the DY Patil Stadium is easy and so Hyderabad chased down the target with ease.
Considering the strong bowling of Gujarat and the weak batting of Hyderabad, the target of 162 runs seemed challenging. Despite the difficulty, SRH batsmen didn’t throw up their wickets. For the first time in this tournament, Gujarat team could not take any wicket in the powerplay. Williamson and Abhishek Sharma added 64 runs for the first wicket. From thereon, match constantly shifted away from Gujarat Titans.
Sunrisers Hyderabad conceded 22 extra runs in this match. Certainly, that could be troubling in a high scoring encounter. Extra runs were the third highest contribution in Gujarat’s innings after Hardik and Abhinav Manohar. Bhuvneshwar alone conceded 12 extra runs. Captain Williamson did score a half-century, but played a slow innings. Chasing a small target, the rest of the batsmen did not suffer, but Williamson’s slow batting can put the team in trouble if they chase a big target.