The fourth match in the 15th edition of the Indian Premier League featured the two new franchises Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants taking on each other at Wankhede Stadium. It turned out to be a thrilling match as GT chased down a tricky target in a game which went down to the wire.
Hardik Pandya won the toss in his first assignment as captain of the Titans, and decided to field first, a decision that paid dividends for the Kolkata Knight Riders on the inaugural day of this year’s tournament.
His counterpart, KL Rahul, on the other hand, had a nightmare of a start, as a ripper of a delivery from veteran Mohammed Shami got rid of the Lucknow captain off the very first ball.
Shami was unplayable in his first spell, as he went on to get the wickets of Quinton de Kock and Manish Pandey within the powerplay, as Lucknow were reduced to a modest 29/4 in the first four overs. Varun Aaron got one of the four wickets, dismissing the dangerous Evin Lewis for 10.
Once the powerplay came to a close, the pitch seemed to get a lot better for the batters, and looked flatter as well. At this stage, it looked as if the Lucknow ship had all but sunk, but Deepak Hooda and Ayush Badoni had other plans.
The relatively inexperienced duo struck up a superb partnership, especially considering the difficult circumstances that their side was in when they walked in to bat. The duo added 87 runs for the fifth wicket as Hooda scored a well-made half-century, before he was trapped in front by spin wizard Rashid Khan.
Badoni, however, stuck around till the very end, also reaching a fine half-century, as the experienced Krunal Pandya struck a few crucial boundaries towards the end of the innings, to take the Lucknow score to 158/6, which looked like it could be defended with some disciplined bowling.
The Titans did not get off to the best of starts either, as Shubman Gill departed for a three-ball duck after a tame dismissal to pacer Dushmantha Chameera.
Chameera piled on the damage as he removed Vijay Shankar as well, leaving the game very much in the balance. Aussie veteran Matthew Wade and skipper Hardik, who walked in at number four, did rebuild the innings, as they added 60 for the third wicket, before Krunal won the battle of the Pandyas, dismissing his younger brother after enticing him with a flighted delivery, ending a promising innings at a score of 33. Wade didn’t hang around much longer, as Hooda made a mess of the keeper-batsman’s woodwork, sending him back to the pavilion for a good score of 30.
The dismissals of Wade and Pandya brought about a massive drought of runs for GT, going 35 balls without a boundary. With the run rate rising to almost 12.50 runs per over, the onus was on David Miller and Rahul Tewatia, who delivered when it mattered most, scoring a barrage of boundaries to drastically bring down the required rate.
Avesh Khan, who bowled the 18th over, conceded eight runs off the first two balls, before removing Miller. Miller’s dismissal brought in Karnataka man Abhinav Manohar, who was brilliant from ball one. With 11 runs to get off the last over, Manohar scored two boundaries off the first two balls, before Rahul Tewatia finished off the chase with a boundary.
Brief scores
Lucknow Super Giants – 158/6 in 20 overs (Hooda 55; Badoni 54; Shami-3/25) lost to Gujarat Titans– 161/5 in 19.4 overs (Tewatia 40*; Pandya 33; Chameera-2/22)
Gujarat Titans beat Lucknow Super Giants by five wickets and two balls to spare
