Umesh Yadav held his nerve after giving away a six and a boundary in the last over as Gujarat Titans usurped Mumbai Indians by just six runs in front of a massive home crowd in Ahmedabad. It was a fine all-round show from GT as five of their six bowlers shared the nine wickets between them.
Umesh’s wisdom of experience
The experienced pacer is known for bowling at an irritable or waspish pace. Not exactly slower ones. After Umesh’s slower short ball was carted for a six by Hardik, Umesh backed his strength and was duly rewarded. He dismissed Hardik with a skiddy short ball. He also removed Piyush Chawla with another short delivery. The shorter length ball continued to be his tried and tested weapon as Shams Mulani and Jasprit Bumrah could collect only two runs off the last two deliveries. Meanwhile, in the dug-out Ashish Nehra, the bowling coach, had a sigh of relief.
The spin twins and Mohit Sharma chip away
Rashid Khan, the GT spearhead, didn’t pick up a wicket but kept a tight lid on the scoring rate. Ultimately, he finished with figures of none for 23 from four overs. With the track slightly on the slower side, Sai Kishore also played a key role, bagging the crucial scalp of Rohit Sharma for 43. Mohit, the impact sub, also contributed to the team’s cause.
Mohit bowled a string of slower short deliveries and his direction was mostly on the money. The plan worked as he took the prized scalps of Dewald Brevis for 46 and Tim David. In fact, Spencer Johnson, who was smashed all over the park in his first over, also made an impression. Tilak Varma had smacked the first ball off the penultimate over into the stands. Johnson then bounced back in style, dislodging both Tilak and Gerald Coetzee. More importantly, MI added only two more runs to their score.
GT post a fighting total
Earlier, most of the home side’s batters struggled to play shots on a rather slow wicket. Sai Sudarshan top-scored with 45 but he took 39 deliveries for it. On the other hand, Shubman Gill, the skipper, essayed a decent hand of 31. Lower down the order, Rahul Tewatia, upped the ante to some extent with a 15-ball 22 to steer the side to a respectable score of 168 for 9.
Bumrah-Coetzee duo headline MI’s strong bowling performance
Bumrah once more put on a virtuoso exhibition of pace bowling. The mainstay of the attack cleaned up Wriddhiman Saha with the yorker and also used the off-cutter to good effect. He returned remarkable figures of 3 for 14 from four overs. Coetzee, the South African fast bowler was deceptively fast, and snaffled a couple of wickets.
2 fantastic games of cricket with RR and GT winning their first matches. Heartbreak for the LSG and MI dugout after reaching oh so close but not being able to see it through.
High quality cricket such as this is what the IPL stands for.@ishaanshahane11 @AgeasFederal @IPL… pic.twitter.com/I65n3O78M7
— RevSportz (@RevSportz) March 24, 2024