There was a hot hundred by Captain Shubman Gill and another one by B Sai Sudarsan, who scored his first century in the IPL as Gujarat Titans retained their place in the playoffs with a 35-run win over Chennai Super Kings on Friday.
Sudharsan (103 of 51 balls) and captain Gill (104 of 55 balls) matched each other’s batting numbers while providing some devastating centuries which helped GT to reach 231/3 runs.
The home team then restricted the defending champions to 196/8 despite Darryl Mitchell scoring 63 and Moeen Ali making 56.
Gill and Sudarsan put up a six-hitting show en route their 210-run partnership for the highest opening wicket stand of this IPL season so far.
The duo also equaled Quinton de Kock and KL Rahul’s record for the highest-ever IPL opening partnership.
Gill’s stellar innings included nine fours and six full runs; meanwhile, Sudarsan’s maiden IPL ton had five boundaries and seven sixes in it.
Contrarily, the CSK openers were out cheaply with only two on board. Also dismissed was their best batsman this season, skipper Rituraj Gaikwad (0), caught brilliantly at the boundary by Rashid Khan. Ball for DC are currently at 10/3.
Mitchell and Moeen destroyed things through hitting back at Noor Ahmed and Rashid Afghanistan spin duo, finally settling with a partnership of 109 points scored.
Notable among these were three successive sixes from Moeen off Noor in the eleventh over and Mitchel hit Rashid for a four followed by another maximum in the next over making it 48 off last ball. Which brought down total score to 113 points
However, veteran Mohit Sharma (3/31) bowled his very first delivery getting rid of Mitchell and then coming back to scalp Moeen and Shivam Dube (21).
Rashid was soon among the wickets, removing Ravindra Jadeja (18) and Mitchell Santner.
Three consecutive maximums including a half century by Mahendra Singh Dhoni (26*), who also hit the last ball of the innings for a six ensured that the fans had something to cheer about but it turned out to be a loss.
The win took GT off the bottom of the table to eighth position with 10 points from 12 games.
While CSK are fourth on 12 points, their net run rate has taken a hit going from +0.700 to +0.491.
Earlier in today’s game Gill was asked to bat first and he timed Santner’s delivery perfectly striking GT’s first boundary of the innings. Then he lifted one over midwicket for maximum making his highest score of the match as well as setting up its rhythm.
When Simarjeet Singh delivered an easy ball outside off stump, Gill displayed languid grace while depositing it into stands for six runs in sixth over.
On other end Sudarsan too was too fast after slow start he got down on his knees and slogged past star spinner Ravindra Jadeja for 50 runs off 32 balls.
Later on, Gill also hit top shot which got him fifty runs.
Except Shardul Thakur who conceded only twenty-five runs in his overs, there was no stopping them though some bowlers tried hard
It could be observed that CSK did not defend their title against Gill when they gave away another boundary .
2/33 deliveries faced by Tushar Deshpande (2/33) and he misjudged a miss from Gill to be caught out at 72. Daryl Mitchell is responsible for six turnovers, and his score is 19.
Gill soon had his fourth century in the IPL off of four full tosses at square leg by Simarjeet. The youngster celebrated it with much hullabaloo as this was the hundredth IPL ton.
Sudarsan followed his captain up and stylishly dinged it over the fence for a maximum to bring up his maiden IPL century.
The bowlers of CSK then made an effective comeback, conceding just 41 runs in five overs. Sudharsan and Gill were dismissed by Deshpande.