Chris Dhambarage
COLOMBO – Dashing opener Shubman Gill hammered a fine half century to help Gujarat Titans beat Punjab Kings by six wickets in their Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 cricket encounter played at Mohali on Thursday.
The 23-year-old right-hander struck a match winning 67 from 49 balls with one six and seven boundaries as Gujarat Titans reached their victory target of 153 runs with six wickets and one delivery to spare.
Even then, it was Rahul Tewatia who added the finishing touches by smashing the penultimate ball of the innings to the boundary after Gill had departed when Gujarat Titans needed six runs from the last four balls.
Sam Curran took over the last over for Punjab Kings with seven runs needed and he nearly produced the desired results with some terrific bowling.
Gujarat Titans got off to a superb start as the openers Wriddhiman Shah and Gill added 48 runs from 4.4 overs before Punjab Kings came back into the game through some accurate bowling from Kagiso Rabada, Arshdeep Singh and Harpreet Brar.
Earlier, Punjab Kings were restricted to a modest 153 for eight after they were put into bat despite some valuable contributions from Matthew Short, Jitesh Sharma, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Sam Curran 22 and Shahruckh Khan.
But none of them were able to convert those good starts into a big score as they kept on losing wickets at regular intervals.
In fact, right-arm fast bowler Mohit Sharma who returned splendid figures of two wickets for 18 from his four overs was named Player of the Match.
Chief scores
Punjab Kings: 153/8 in 20 overs (Matthew Short 36, Jitesh Sharma 25, Bhanuka Rajapaksa 20, Sam Curran 22, Shahrukh Khan 22, Mohit Sharma 2/18)
Gujarat Titans: 154/4 in 19.5 overs (Wriddhiman Shah 30, Shubman Gill 67)
