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In IPL cricket, Gujarat Titans are unquestionably the masters of the chase. They have emerged victorious from 16 out of 22 games in which they have batted second, frequently exhibiting remarkable comebacks. On a particular occasion, Wednesday night, Shubman Gill, their new captain, couldn’t resist sharing a casual remark about writing them off in the delightful afterglow.
On a pitch that appeared to be a little difficult to score runs on, the Titans had given up 196 runs. Sanju Samson, the captain of the Rajasthan Royals, stated that there was no dew and that the ball bounced on the lower side, making it more difficult to go under the ball and make huge shots.
“We were targeting 45 in three overs and that is very much gettable,” Gill said, as he broke down the way he and his team go about a T20 chase. “Fifteen runs per over [means] you just need two hits in the over and that was the mindset at that time. Mathematically, both batsmen need to score nine-ball 22 runs and if you think like that, okay, its three hits in nine balls and if one of the batsmen goes berserk, you’ll see the match getting over in two three balls. [Impact sub] definitely makes a difference, if you have an extra batter there. But it’s just the mindset [thinking of 45 in three overs as needing just two hits an over] to make things more easy, more simple.”
Gill made 72 off 44 balls on his own. It was a magnificent innings, particularly the way he attacked the middle-overs bankers for the Royals, Yuzvendra Chahal and R Ashwin. When he fell in the 16th over while attempting to knock a third boundary in three balls against Chahal, the Titans captain appeared to be going it alone. He exited the pitch by slamming his bat into the ground. At that moment, the Titans, who had only won two of their previous five games, needed to score 64 runs off 28 balls.
“I would have loved to finish the game [myself],” Gill said, “But very happy with the way Rashid [Khan] bhai and Rahul [Tewatia] bhai finished the game for us. In the past couple of matches as well, I thought we dominated more than 50% of the game and the bad phase was we played really bad cricket and that’s why we lost. This game, we were there and thereabouts, we were a little bit behind the game and then winning the game on the last ball is always a great feeling.”