Shubman Gill reaffirmed his status as heir to the throne of Virat Kohli with a magnificent hundred as Gujarat Titans beat Royal Challengers Bangalore from IPL with a six-wicket win, leaving Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians as the fourth team in the play-offs in Bengaluru could sneak. on Sunday. After Kohli scored a 61-ball 101 in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s 197 for five, it looked like the best try of the day, but Gill, who will be the torchbearer of Indian batting for the next 10 years, showed he is better than the best . What Kohli did well, Gill did better, as his unbeaten 104 off 52 balls saw Titans chase the target with gusto. Like former India captain Kohli, this was Gill’s second consecutive hundred.
Gill hit eight sixes and five fours.
Thus, Titans ended the league games with 20 points, while CSK finished second with 17 points ahead of Lucknow Super Giants due to better net run rate. Mumbai Indians, after their eight wicket victory against SRH, were back in the last four with 16 runs.
Taking 34 from three overs, Gill’s short arm half jab, half pull from Mohammed Siraj was the killing blow, and then he hit him for another six to kill the game when Kohli hit his head in the dugout in disbelief.
RCB had their destiny in their own hands, but a poor execution while defending a healthy total was their downfall.
Gill was excellent in his touch play against pacers with that extra split second to play his shots, while the regal footwork against leg spinner Himanshu Sharma was a connoisseur’s delight.
Michael Bracewell’s pick-up flick behind the off-break square was easily the shot of the night, followed by a monster hit over a long time.
Gill had an able ally in Vijay Shankar (53 off 35 balls). The pair added 123 runs for the second wicket as Gujarat Titans never let the intensity down.
The difference between Gill’s winning knock and Kohli’s effort was the support on the other side. While Kohli had to do all the heavy lifting, Gill found support on the other side.
RCB also had several weak links in their bowling unit and Gill very cleverly targeted the slow bowlers with leg spinner Himanshu and off spinner Bracewell in their four overs giving away 44 runs, while 40 came from the spell of inexperienced Vijaykumar Vyshak.
Previously, Kohli was the lone ranger as his second consecutive century of Royal Challengers took Bangalore to a challenging total after being brought to bat first.
With the rain gods threatening to ruin RCB’s playoff plans during the day, the game starting half an hour late saw Kohli bring back his 2016 avatar. He had all aces on his knock which had 13 fours and a six.
His innings were invaluable in the context that none of the other RCB batsmen could even reach 30 and just like in the good old days ‘King Kohli’ continued the story by playing with line, length and mind of the bowlers .
This is his seventh IPL hundred and he has now passed Chris Gayle as the highest tournament batting batter.
Given that Chinnaswamy Stadium is known for its batting belters, the final total, while competitive enough, was definitely 10-15 runs short.
Kohli and skipper Faf Du Plessis (28) got off to a daring start, with a flurry of boundaries against Mohammed Shami (1/39 in 4 overs) and the already distraught Yash Dayal in the power play.
They were sent out for as many as nine boundaries, prompting Hardik Pandya to quickly bring his main weapon, Rashid Khan (1/24 in 4 overs), into action to stop the flow of runs.
After conceding 62 runs in six power play overs, Rashid and his ‘left arm mirror image’ Noor Ahmed (2/39 in 4 overs) put the brakes on the scoring.
Noor dismissed du Plessis as he erratically tried to punch him in. The edge hit Wriddhiman Saha’s pads and lobbed up for Rahul Tewatia to complete an easy catch.
Glenn Maxwell started well, but Rashid bowled one that was fast and full, breaking back just enough to break through the batter’s defense when RCB suddenly found himself in a rut.
Things got worse when Noor Mahipal dragged Lomror with one that turned the other way and Saha completed a leg punch with the finesse associated with him for years.
Michael Bracewell (26) on the other hand put some pressure on Kohli as Mohit Sharma’s slower balls didn’t work well on this occasion.
In his first three overs he was hit for seven fours and it was Shami who got hold of Bracewell before he could do more damage and Dayal finally had something for him as Dinesh Karthik’s woeful season got worse.
But Kohli kept fighting.
(This story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Topics mentioned in this article
