Recent Match Report – Titans vs Mumbai Qualifier 2 2023

gujarat titans 233 for 3 wickets (Gill 129, Sudarshan 43, Chawla 1-45) defeated Mumbai Indians 171 (Suryakumar 61, Verma 43, Mohit 5-10) by 62 runs

Mohit, who did not bowl till the 14th over, made good use of his slower balls and finished with figures of 2.2-0-10-5.

ajay gill

Despite hitting at least one four in each over from the second to the fifth, the Titans could only reach 38 runs without loss after five. After this, Gill dismissed Chris Jordan in the last over of the powerplay. The second legal delivery of the over was very short and sat on this sticky pitch. Gill waited for it and pulled it contemptuously over deep square leg. The next one was a little short of out off. Gill once again shows no mercy and cuts it ruthlessly to the cover boundary.

Luck was also with Gill. In the same over from Jordan, he punched a ball high to the right of mid-on, where Tim David dived, got the ball with both hands, but could not stop it. He was on 30 runs at that time.

Titans ended the powerplay at 50 without loss but Wriddhiman Saha struggled for timing. In the fourth over of the innings, he was hit on the helmet by a sharp bouncer from Akash Madhwal, and soon afterwards Piyush Chawla had him stumped wide of the leg-side. This was the sixth time in 16 innings this season that Chawla hit a four in his first over of the match.

Gill completed his half-century in 32 balls. And then he let loose. He hit five sixes and a four on Madhawal and Chawla in a span of nine balls. His pace did not slow down even in the 90s; His second half-century came in just 17 balls. Soon after reaching his century, he gave away 6, 4 and 6 to Cameron Green. By the time Gill edged the ball to deep midwicket off Madhwal, the Titans had reached 192 runs in the 17th over.

Titans retire Sudarshan

All this happened when Sai was playing the second innings after Sudarshan Gill. But with nine wickets remaining, the Titans needed both the batsmen to attack. A total of only 16 runs were scored in the 18th and 19th overs, after which the Titans retired Sudarshan, who scored 43 runs in 31 balls. Rashid took his place in the middle and hit a four on his first ball. After this, Hardik Pandya gave the finishing touch by hitting a four and a six on the last two balls of the innings.

Shami struck twice in the powerplay

Coming into this game, Mohammed Shami had represented the Titans three times against Mumbai. He did not get any wicket on all three occasions. However, tonight, he put Mumbai on the backfoot by striking twice inside the powerplay. Nehal Wadhera, who came in as an impact player for Madhwal, was caught behind the wicket in the first over and Rohit top-edged a pull in the third over.

In between those two outs, Harden hit Green on the left arm with a short ball, forcing the batsman to retire hurt. During the first innings, when both were crossing each other, Ishan Kishan left the field after Jordan’s elbow hit him in the eye. So when Rohit left with Mumbai at 21 for 2, it felt like they had effectively reached 21 for 4. But Green later came on to resume his innings, and Kishan was ruled out with an injury, so Mumbai replaced him with Vishnu Vinod.

Rashid, Mohit defeat mighty Mumbai

Verma started off by hitting two sixes off his first four balls and then hit Shami for four fours and a six in the 24-run over. He reached 43 runs off just 13 with 100% control over his shots. Hardik turned to Rashid in an attempt to put a brake on the scoring rate. The spinner obliged his captain by bowling Verma when the batsman tried to sweep him.

After Verma’s wicket fell, Green once again came on the field and was looking dangerous. He and Suryakumar added 52 runs in 5.2 overs before Josh Little hit his leg stump on a seamed ball of good length.

However, Suryakumar was still struggling in the middle. He completed his half-century in 33 balls by taking a scoop pull over the wicketkeeper’s head. He brought the equation down to 79 needed off 34 balls before Mohit sent him packing. After two balls, the fast bowler got Vinod caught at extra cover.

David was Mumbai’s last hope. As usual, Hardik saved one over from Rashid and brought him in in the 16th over. Rashid got David out LBW on his third ball. The batsman reviewed the decision but he could not have been out more. From the other end, Mohit clean bowled the last ball to take his first five-wicket haul in T20 cricket.