IPL24: Gujarat Titans suffer major batting debacle & big loss to Delhi Capitals

 

Gujarat Titans suffered a big loss at home in front of their fans as they lost to Delhi Capitals with many overs to spare .  Shubman Gill's team could not use the advantage of batting first.  The innings of the last two year's  finalists ended on 89 runs, losing wickets at regular intervals from the start.  Gujarat's innings ended with 16 balls remaining under the control of Mukesh Kumar.  Rishabh Pant's Delhi Capitals had to gain some momentum to score 90 runs for victory.  Delhi won by 4 wickets in 8.5 overs.

 Not even a single batter could score a run.  On Wednesday, Gujarat Titans looked like a bunch of novices .  Shubman was dismissed first by Ishant Sharma (8 runs from 6 balls).  The other opener Wriddhiman Saha scored 2 runs in 10 balls and was bowled .  Sai Sudarshan, who batted  at number three, made 12 off 9 balls before he was runout .  David Miller's contribution is 2 runs from 6 balls.  8 runs off 14 balls came from Abhinav Manohar's bat.  Rahul Tewatia scored 10 runs off 15 balls before he was lbw trying to sweep .  Shah Rukh Khan, who came in as an impact player, got out in the very first ball as he was stumped .  Looking at the run and ball count of the Gujarat batsmen, it might seem that they were playing a Test match.

Gujarat lost 6 wickets for 48 runs and fell under pressure.  The lower half batters could not handle that pressure.  Delhi's bowlers were behind the collapse of Gujarat's innings, but Titans actially batted poorly .  Several batsmen were dismissed by wrong shot selection.  They could not play the ball of Ishant, Khalil Ahmed, Mukesh, Kuldeep Yadav, Akshar Patel.  Rashid Khan tried to put up some fight in the end.  The Afghan all-rounder's innings could not save the team from a deep crisis.  Rashid made 31 off 24 balls.  2 fours and 1 six came from his bat.  Rashid hit only one six for Gujarat on this day.  Apart from this, Mohit Sharma scored 4 runs off 14 balls.  Noor Ahmed scored 1 run in 7 balls.  Spencer Johnson remained unbeaten with 1 run.

 Mukesh took 3 wickets for 14 runs.  Bengal best strong bowler dismissed Wriddhiman Saha, Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmed.  Among the Delhi bowlers, Ishant took 2 wickets for 8 runs.  2 wickets for 11 runs by Tristan Stubbs.  Akshar took 1 wicket for 17 runs.  Kuldeep did not get a wicket but spent 16 runs.  Khalil took 1 wicket for 18 runs.

Chasing the target of 90 runs for victory, Delhi had to lose 4 wickets.  Prithvi Shaw (7) did not have a lot stay abd was done by a short lifting ball .  Jack Fraser, the other opener, blasted a quick  20 off 10 balls.  He hit 2 fours and a six.  Bengal's debutant Abhishek Porel did not get a run at number three.  He made 15 off 7 balls with 2 fours and 1 six.  19 runs from 10 balls came from  Hope's bat.  He hit 1 four and 2 sixes.  Despite losing 4 wickets for 67 runs, Delhi had no problem as the target was small.  In the end, captain Pant and Sumit Kumar gave the team victory from 22 yards.  Panth remained unbeaten with 16 runs off 11 balls.  Hit 1 with a four and a six.  Sumit remained unbeaten with 9 runs off 9 balls.  2 fours came from his bat.  Sandeep Warrier of Delhi took 2 wickets for 40 runs.  Johnson's 1 wicket for 22 runs.  Rashid took 1 wicket after spending 12 runs.

Pant for his impressive  captaincy & keeping was the player of the match as Delhi had a major boost in their NRR after this swift victory 

 Sourav Ganguly's Delhi has won the smallest match of this year's IPL and climbed to  sixth place in the points table.  Panth's points are six in seven matc .  On the other hand, Gujarat also collected six points in seven matches.  In terms of net run rate, Gujj remained seventh in the list.