Shubman Gill’s great lone hand with the bat nearly went in vain but Lockie Ferguson put in a great bowling performance of his own to drag Gujarat Titans to only the third successful defence in this IPL. Gill scored a personal-best 84 off 46 in a breathtaking yet silken innings; other, including extras, managed just 87 off 74 balls.
It was a strictly middling total, which Capitals looked like cruising to on two occasions, but an accurate and quick Ferguson produced two two-wicket overs to skittle the chase with figures of 4-0-28-4. Gill was particularly severe on spin, scoring 45 off 21 balls from Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav, who conceded just 24 in the remaining 27 balls between them as they had reason to believe they actually controlled the middle overs.
Just as the DC batters would have thought they were in control but once it gets up to 145kmph and above – even some of his offcutters were that quick – and it gets higher than the chest, funny things happen. Rishabh Pant, Prithvi Shaw, Axar Patel and Mandeep Singh all fell to his short-pitched bowling.
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