Gujarat Titans pack leader Mohammed Shami reckons they should have chased down the total of 131 runs against Delhi Capitals at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Tuesday. Shami bowled a stunning spell of 4-11 in his quota of four overs to push DC on the back foot.
Shami accounted for Phillip Salt, Rilee Rossouw, Priyam Garg, and Manish Pandey as he got the new ball to swing both ways and breathed down the neck of the visitors’ batters in the Powerplay overs.
In fact, DC found themselves in tatters at 23-5 after the end of five overs and four of these five scalps were taken by Shami.
However, his heroic effort went in vain as DC went on to defend their lowest-ever total in the IPL and won by five runs. GT kept losing wickets at regular intervals and thus could not get consistent partnerships, which led to their downfall. Ishant Sharma and Khaleel Ahmed bagged two wickets apiece for the tourists whereas Kuldeep Yadav bowled a miser spell of 1-15 in his four overs.
Mohammed Shami was awarded Player of the Match for his best bowling figures in the IPL. He said in the post-match presentation, “I just try to stick to my plans. Stick to the areas, the line and length that we discussed. This wasn’t a score that was above par, there was not too much swing. I felt we should have chased this. The mistake was losing wickets at regular intervals, we needed partnerships and they came too late for us. However, plenty of games left. Such things happen.”
In fact, this was just the second loss for GT while chasing a score in 14 attempts in the IPL.
Meanwhile, the penultimate over, which was bowled by Anrich Nortje, and was taken for 21 runs. However, Ishant Sharma was able to defend 12 runs in the final over as he made the most of his experience to help DC win by five runs.
Ishant Sharma said after the match, “I keep practicing in the nets. We practice bowling we the new ball, but at the same time we do practice bowling wide yorkers, and today the hardwork paid off, I just backed myself and bowled wide yorkers. When you are preparing yourself in the nets we plan to certain batsmen as to what to bowl and it is all about executing it every single time, back yourself and believing in yourself. I played enough cricket him (Tewatia), so was just having fun with him. I knew I had to double bluff him otherwise we know what he can do with the bat. We (The bowlers) don’t think about the target, it is just about executing the plans. From hereon we hope to carry the momentum, keep going forward and hope for the best.”
DC will next take on Royal Challengers Bangalore on Saturday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi.
