Gujarat Titans (GT) continued their dominance over Mumbai Indians (MI) at their home ground, securing a 36-run victory. Setting a target of 197, GT’s innings was filled with promising starts but lacked a power finish. Sai Sudharsan’s 63 (41) anchored the innings, while Shubman Gill and Jos Buttler made impactful contributions before falling short of big scores.
Mumbai’s chase never gathered momentum, stumbling early as Mohammad Siraj’s fiery spell rattled the top order. Despite a brief resurgence from Suryakumar Yadav (48) and N. Tilak Varma, MI lost steam in the middle overs. Prasidh Krishna’s tight spell (2/18) and disciplined bowling from GT stifled their scoring. Hardik Pandya struggled with an 11 (17) knock, and late blows from Naman Dhir and Mitchell Santner only reduced the margin. Below, we see the player ratings for all the MI players.
Rohit Sharma (2/10), Ryan Rickelton (2/10):
Mumbai Indians needed their openers to fire in the run chase. But that couldn’t happen. Mohammed Siraj broke the back of the two openers. Rohit, despite hitting a couple of boundaries, got a jaffer. His IPL slump continues, averaging not more than 25 since IPL 2020. Meanwhile, Rickelton has had a poor start to his IPL career. For the second game running, Rickelton dragged on onto the stumps.
Tilak Varma (4/10):
Tilak Varma’s innings was divided into two halves. He was at 17 runs after nine balls. But then, the southpaw made 25 runs in his next 27 balls. That was a major slump in his batting. The GT spinners contained him. Tilak just couldn’t get in the groove post powerplay as his innings of 108.3 strike rate hampered MI’s chances.
Suryakumar Yadav (9/10): Best MI batter
By a distance, Suryakumar Yadav was Mumbai’s best batter. He was perhaps the only bright spot for MI, making runs after major failures in recent times. We got vintage SKY tonight, with the Indian T20I captain hammering scoops for sixes through the on side. When the required got over 15 and he kept losing partners, even he had to attempt a wild hoick and missed his fifty by a couple of runs.
Hardik Pandya (4.5/10): Great bowling, poor batting
The Ahmedabad crowd welcomed Hardik Pandya with cheers this time around. He even put up a stellar bowling performance as well. The MI captain bowled in the middle phase of the game and maintained an economy of 7.20, the best for his team. However, when it got tougher for batting, he couldn’t quite manage to negate the same type of slower ones. Pandya hit a painstaking 11 off 17.
Mitchell Santner (8/10) & Mujeeb ur Rahman (5/10):
It was surprising for Mumbai to include Mujeeb Ur Rahman instead of last match’s hero Vignesh Puthur. Also, what came as another surprise what the fact that Santner didn’t bowl his quota of four overs. Meanwhile, Mujeeb bowled just two, giving away 28 runs but took the prized wicket of Jos Buttler.
Santner was frugal with his economy of 8.30 but Mujeeb was expensive. Mujeeb’s inclusion also kept out Will Jacks, who could’ve also bowled two overs if that was the case.
Trent Boult (7/10) & Deepak Chahar (7/10)
The GT vs MI clash proved how badly MI’s bowling unit depend on these two. Deepak Chahar and Trent Boult are perhaps the two most succesful new ball bowlers in IPL history but they couldn’t find a breakthrough. Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan played them rather easily, strolling 66 runs in the powerplay. While Chahar was unfortunate that one over throw of 5 runs went to his name, Boult bowled some great yorkers in his only death over.
Satyanarayana Raju (7.5/10)
Yes, he got hit for 40 runs in 3 overs but Satyanarayana Raju is one to watch out for future. MI have showed immense faith on him, slotting him in the first two matches. He bowled three bowlers in Ahmedabad, leaking runs at 13.30. But it must be noted that all three overs were bowled after the 13-over mark.
What was heartening to see was Raju’s various variations. He bowled a slower bouncer, back of the hand delivery, fast yorker, off-cutter and usual good length delivery all in his 3-over spell. MI’s nuance of developing youngster has once again struck the right cord and if the Andhra-born pacer gets more confident, we might see him as a regular fixture in the XI.
