Gujarat Titans redeemed themselves after the soul-crushing loss at the hands of Kolkata Knight Riders as they posted a stunning victory over Punjab Kings in yet another cliffhanger IPL match in Mohali on Thursday. GT opener Shubhman Gill played a terrific knock of 67 off 48 deliveries to get the defending champs back on winning track. This is the second consecutive time when the home team has lost the match. On Wednesday, Chennai Super Kings had suffered a heart-breaking loss as visitors Rajasthan Royals posted a 3-run victory.
For Punjab Kings skipper Shikhar Dhawan, it must have been a sense of Deja vu. Just like the last PBKS match against SunRisers Hyderabad, Kings lost the toss this time too and were asked to bat first. However, at that time, Dhawan was able to drag the score to a decent mark after unbeaten 99 runs. But on Thursday, no batter, including Dhawan were able to face the tight bowling by GT. Matthew Short, Shahrukh Khan, Sam Curran did contribute with bat but that wasn’t enough to post a big target for a team like GT.
Restricting PBKS on a batting surface like Mohali proved excellent bowling by GT. Mohit Sharma, who made a comeback to IPL with GT debut on Thursday, scalped two wickets. Rashid Khan, Md Shami, Josh Little and Alzarri Joseph took one wicket each.
GT began their chase in a flamboyant way. Wriddhiman Saha and Gill started off in composed manner and in no time reached a comfortable score. But soon, things got out of hand for GT. What could have been an easy win for Titans turned out to be a cliffhanger. Just like other matches that IPL fans have seen since Sunday, this was also dragged till last over.
Sam Curran did make it possible to believe that Kings could win at the home ground, Rahul Tewatia snatched that chance with a classy boundary. While PBKS lost the match, star bowler Kagiso Rabada achieved a milestone during the game. Rabada has become the fastest player to complete 100 wickets in the history of IPL. he achieved this landmark in just 64 games.