Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill rued drop catches after his team suffered a three-wicket loss against Punjab Kings at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Thursday. The Titans posted a par score of 199 runs on the board after Shikhar Dhawan decided to bowl first.
Shubman Gill scored an unbeaten knock of 89 runs off just 48 balls but Shashank Singh got the visitors over the line with his unbeaten 61 off 29 balls.
Meanwhile, the Gujarat Titans dropped three catches, which led to their downfall. Sikandar Raza was dropped by Azmatullah Omarzai on the bowling of Umesh Yadav. Subsequently, Umesh Yadav could not get himself into a good position as he bungled Ashutosh Sharma’s catch and then Sai Sudharsan dropped a difficult chance to give another reprieve to Sharma.
Punjab Kings had their backs against the wall as they were tottering at 70-4 after 8.4 overs but Ashutosh Sharma and Shashank Singh added 43, out of which the former scored 31 off 17 on his debut. Ergo, PBKS was able to chase down the highest score in IPL 2024 so far.
Shubman Gill said in the post-match presentation, “I think a couple of catches went down, never easy (to win) when you drop catches. Bowlers did a decent job, when the ball is coming on to the bat, it’s difficult to defend, I wouldn’t say we were short (on runs). The new ball was doing something. 200 was good enough.”
Gill added, “We were right in the game till about the 15th over. Always under pressure with dropped catches.”
On giving the final over to Nalkande with only seven runs in the bank, Gill concluded, “With the way he’s bowled in the last match and with 7 runs to go, it was a no-brainer for us. People who you haven’t seen will come and play knocks like these and that’s the beauty of IPL.”
Gujarat Titans would have been disappointed with this loss as they had the match in their bag but they could close it. The previous season’s runners-up will next take on Lucknow Super Giants at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow on Sunday.
