Half-centuries from Gill and Sudharsan clinch easy win for Titans

The Gujarat Titans extended their lead at the top of the Tata IPL log when they comprehensively outplayed last year’s champions, the Kolkata Knight Riders, by 39 runs at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Monday night.

Defending their challenging total of 198 for three, the Titans won a comfortable victory, restricting their opponents to 159 for eight wickets. In the end, the visiting team outbatted, outbowled and outfielded their opponents.

One of the glaring differences between the teams was the top-order batting. The Titans, having been put in to bat, played with a measured excellence up front, with openers Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan playing conventional cricket shots on a pitch that was a little slow with the ball gripping in the surface.

The pair, the most successful openers in the IPL who average over 60 together, added 114 in 75 balls. They were both ruthless in putting away the bad ball and they also ran superbly between the wickets to turn many ones into twos. The timing and the placement of their shots were largely impeccable.

The pair were only parted in the 13th over when Andre Russell, in his only over, got extra lift outside Sudharsan’s off-stump to induce a feather through to wicketkeeper Rahmanullah Gurbaz. The left-hander struck a superb 52 in 36 balls.

Jos Buttler, fresh from his unbeaten 97 in their last match, was quickly into his stride although he had a little luck, being dropped twice in the outfield. He and Gill, who continued to play masterfully, added 58 in 33 balls for the second wicket when Gill was brilliantly caught in the outfield by Rinku Singh, running forward to scoop the ball off the turf. Gill’s splendid knock of 90 came in 55 balls and included 10 fours and three sixes.

Buttler, in great form in this IPL, finished unbeaten on 41 in 23 balls (8x4s). For KKR, wrist-spinner Varun Chakravarthy was unlucky not to take a wicket, finishing with 0-33 off his four overs, but the home team’s sometimes-shoddy fielding didn’t properly support their bowlers.

EARLY BLOW

The Knight Riders, needing a sound start, lost opener Gurbaz, brought in to replace the struggling Quinton de Kock, in the first over, leg before to Mohammed Siraj, and they never really looked like winning after that. Sunil Narine, always dangerous in this form of the game, played a couple of extravagant shots but then hit Rashid Khan straight to square leg.

Skipper Ajinkya Rahane tried to stitch the innings together with an impressive half-century, his third of this year’s IPL, but when he was stumped by Buttler off Washington Sundar, the game was almost up.

Andre Russell smacked a couple of hefty blows, but he fell victim to legspinner Khan, also stumped by Buttler. Rashid, who has been in poor form, gave a much-improved performance, targeting the stumps, as he claimed 2-25. Fellow spinner Sai Kishore was also impressive, not afraid to give the ball air as he took 1-19 in three overs.

There was a late flourish, albeit when the game was already lost, from impact sub Angkrish Raghuvanshi (27* in 13 balls) who should, perhaps, have batted higher up the order.

The Titans’ bowlers were backed up by some excellent fielding in the deep as time and again the fielders put their bodies on the line to save valuable runs.

GUJARAT TITANS: Shubman Gill (capt), Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler (wk), Sherfane Rutherford, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Washington Sundar, Sai Kishore, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rahane (capt), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Moeen Ali, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy