Gujarat Titan’s chase of 153 began on a shaky note with Mohammed Shami and Cummins removing the in-form Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler cheaply. At that stage, it seemed that SRH would put up some fight in front of their fans. But Washington Sundar and Shubman Gill promptly put out the flames in style, and SRH stumbled to another defeat.
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While Washington was the aggressor from the start, Gill played second fiddle in the stand of 90 runs from 56 balls. Washington, tall and rangy, was brutal on anything short. He got hold off Simarjeet Singh in the final powerplay over and plundered 20 runs off the largely short-ball diet. He adeptly harnessed the pace of Simarjeet to find the ropes. The momentum of the game switched. An ex-SRH player, who warmed the bench for most of his time here, he bit them back on his return with a 29-ball 49.
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Post powerplay, Gill, who has had a quiet tournament so far, expanded himself and crunched a few glorious boundaries. He drove with characteristic grace and motored along to the finish line. The victory in sight, Sundar departed, one run short of his half-century. Gill then changed his programming code from anchor role to finisher. It was cruise control from there, as Gill’s command over the chase was impeccable. The big-hitting Sherfane Rutherford rubbed further salt into the wounds of the bruised SRH bowlers with a 35 off only 16 balls.
But it was the Titans’ bowling pair of Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna that set up the win.
Hunting in pairs
Siraj and Krishna are not bowlers opponents would lose their sleep over playing in T20 cricket. Prasidh is a classic hit-the-deck bowler, make the ball lift awkwardly at batsmen while Siraj loves extracting seam movement with a fuller and good lengths. Neither possess a rich array of variations to inspire a bidding war in auctions.
Teams would rather be worrying about Rashid Khan and his mysticism. But while Rashid has blown hot and cold, Siraj and Prasidh have emerged as predominant destroyers of batting line-ups. The tale was similar against SRH.
Siraj has got himself into a happy habit of striking with the new ball this season and he continued it by nabbing Travis Head on Sunday. The Australian scored a couple of boundaries, before he chipped one straight to mid-wicket. Then in his third over in the Powerplay, he removed Abhishek Sharma, caught by mid-on. In the 19th over Siraj returned and ejected Aniket Verma and Simarjeet Singh with a couple of accurately nailed fuller ones. The Verma one would delight him especially. It was the near-perfect in-swinging yorker that hammered his front-leg, the ones that made him famous in the tennis ball and local league circuits.
on a surface that was a touch on the slower side. Then it would suddenly stop at them or move inwards dramatically to the right-handers, thanks to his cross and wobble seamers, which he managed with expertly subtle seam positions. The execution was precise and SRH batsmen had few answers to the questions he posed.
The beanpole Prasidh, meanwhile, has grown into his new role as middle-over enforcer, taking it on like a fish to the waters. His first over was the last over of the powerplay and he immediately consumed Ishan Kishan with a short ball before dismissing the left-handed Kamindu Mendis with another short-one. Prasidh squeezed the SRH batters through the middle overs with his slower ball variation combined with odd back-of-the-length deliveries. The pair’s combined figures read—8-0-42-6.
Caught in two minds
Will SRH score 300? Such is the inherent power of their batting that they are quite capable of achieving it. In their current form, it looks like a distant peak. After posting 286 runs in the first game the batting just has been unable to deliver a power-packed performance. On Sunday, they adopted a more watchful approach. It didn’t work either and the batsmen looked conflicted. Abhishek, who generally swings the bat at the first possible opportunity, was a tad circumspect. As was Ishan Kishan, both scoring at less than a strike rate of 115.
Nitish Kumar Reddy’s batting epitomised SRH’s muddled approach. His innings never got going. His 31-ball 34 betrayed all the clutter a drastic change of natural approach entails. Henrich Klaasen tried to play his natural game however, but the slowish nature of the surface did not help his cause. Sai Kishore bowled him with the wickedly-spinning armer. He also ended Nitish’s misery and killed any hope of a par score on this surface. In the end, skipper Pat Cummins used his long levers to take SRH to 152. The total was always going to be inadequate and so it proved. What SRH batting requires is not so much drastic measures as a careful revision of their plans.
Brief Scores: SRH 152/8 (N Reddy 31; M Siraj 4/17) lost to GT 153/3 in 16.3 overs (S Gill 61 not out, W Sundar 49; S Rutherford 35 not out) by seven wickets.
