Mumbai : Gujarat Titans (GT) edged past SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH), winning by five wickets in Match 40 of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 season at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, on Wednesday.
A half-century by Abhishek Sharma helped SRH post 195 for six in 20 overs, with Mohammed Shami taking three wickets for GT. Meanwhile, GT raced to 199 for five in 20 overs, crossing the 196-run target. Umran Malik was in excellent form for SRH and took his maiden IPL five-wicket haul.
Umran Malik, Player of the Match, said, ‘I always bowl fast but I’ve been trying to bowl better lines and lengths. Plan was to rotate between between my plans. Idea was to attack the stumps and it’s worked well for me. 155 (kph), hopefully it happens, but the main goal is to bowl well and pick wickets for my team’.
Hardik Pandya, said, ‘ I keep joking in the dressing room that God is telling us ‘You guys are good, I’ll help you’. It’s happening so often that I fear we may run out of luck in the knockout games. We keep a very chilled atmoshphere and everyone is stepping up. We’re ensuring that the players are backed well. (On his bowling fitness) It’s just a conscious decision to manage my bowling, plan is to bowl whenever the team needs me.
It’s a long tournament and I don’t want to get too excited early. We’re quite practical, we’ve spoken about winning these situations and there is a lot of self-belief in the camp. It’s important to keep the calm in the dugout, lot of credit goes to the support staff for how they’ve been handling the players.’
Rashid Khan, said, ‘ Feels good, to go there and have that self belief and keep my shape stronger and hit it. Happy to deliver against them (SRH), just trying to play my game and have that belief on my batting which I’m working from the last two years. When it was 22 left. I just told Tewatia that we have given 25 in the last over with one of our best bowler bowling and I told him that we needed to have that belief and not panic, anything is possible. Just stay there, keep your shape and hit it strong and that was the plan (with Tewatia).
I have bowled 4-5 bad deliveries which have been punished and that is something I had in my mind, you can’t miss your line and length on a wicket like this. It was a good wicket to bat on, but still we did well to restrict them to 196. As I said, I have’t bowled as well as I would have liked, this is good for my learning and will try my best not to repeat in the next games. It has been very calm and cool since day one and it’s a great team to be part of and everyone knows the responsibility and respect each other which is a very good thing.
We have been given very positive energy from the captain on and off the field and specially our head coach Ashish bhai has kept the team in a beautiful environment. We are enjoying each other’s company and trying to give our hundred percent. So happy to win and these two points really helps the team in the end and lucky to be in the right side.’
Kane Williamson said, ‘ It was a fantastic game of cricket that ebbed and flowed throughout the 40 overs, it’s a game of very fine margins. Could have gone either ways, but a great learning for us. Another strong performance at the top of the table though. It was a fantastic finish by Shashank Singh, he played beautifully. Credit to Gujarat as they played outstandingly well, we’ll take positives out of this game. He (Malik) has been bowling beautifully, an outstanding performance by him. If you are not on the money, the ball can fly anywhere.
He (Rashid) has done it already in this tournament, and he has done it again. There’s a lot of learning for us, but with two strong sides such things happen. He (Jansen) will bounce back nicely, there have been a number of games like these. Sometimes you are blown away by the better side, credit to them (Gujarat) as they played outstandingly well.’