STATS HIGHLIGHTS
Follow UsGujarat Titans and last over thrillers, are going hand-in-hand this season of IPL. In four chases that they have taken the match to the last over, Gujarat have scored 70 runs at a run rate of 20 and won in all four.
Thinking the unimaginable and achieving it in style
When 22 runs are required in the last over to win, most of the times, a win for the chasing team is ruled out. But, when Gujarat are batting anything is possible, even two sixes of the last ball.
In their match against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Gujarat required 22 runs to win in the last over. Rahul Tewatia, the last over hero, started off with a six and took a single of the second ball. With 15 required, Rashid smashed a six of the third ball, the penultimate ball and the last ball to achieve an unimaginable victory. Only Rising Pune Supergiants in 2017 against Punjab Kings (Kings XI then) required more runs (23) to win in the last over and they achieved it.
The brutal 20th
Generally, in the 20th over of the innings, bowling teams go for runs. However, in this fixture between Gujarat and Hyderabad, there was a downpour of runs.
Batting first, thanks to a scintillating blitz from Shashank Singh, Hyderabad were able to score 25 runs in the 20th over against Lockie Ferguson. Marco Jansen also chipped in with a six for Hyderabad in the last over. Gujarat batters were equally up to the task. Howbeit, Gujarat had the pressure of scoring those runs in a chase. Well, that didn’t matter as they also scored 25 runs in the last over. An aggregate of 50 runs were scored in the 20th over in this match, which is the second most in an IPL fixture.
Malik’s magical spell in vain
Throughout this season, Umran Malik has been the talk of the town. With 15 wickets to his name this season, Malik is the joint-second leading wicket taker. In his first four games, Malik had three wickets at an economy of 10.4. However, in his last four, he has 12 with an economy of 5.8.
After picking up a four-wicket haul against Punjab in his sixth match, Malik bettered it with a five-wicket haul in his match against Gujarat. By virtue of his first five-for, Malik became the second Hyderabad bowler in the IPL to achieve the feat after Bhuvneshwar Kumar in 2017 against Punjab.
To add more, the bowler from Jammu and Kashmir, achieved the feat at the age of 22 years and 156 days and became the third youngest bowler in the IPL to bag a five-wicket haul. Unfortunately, Hyderabad’s rest of the bowlers couldn’t take them over the line. Instead, their failure handed an unwanted record under Malik’s name. In the IPL, Malik became the first bowler to bag a five-wicket haul in the second innings in a losing cause.
Ripping them through
When you have raw pace and the ability to back it, why bowl slower ones. This has been something that Malik has been following throughout the IPL. His fastest ball in the match against Gujarat was clocked 153kph, a ripping Yorker that shattered the stumps of Wriddhiman Saha.
Thanks to his pace, most of his dismissals in this edition have been through bowled, eight out of 15 to be precise. In this innings, out of his five wickets, four came through this mode of dismissal, which is the joint most by a bowler in an innings of IPL.
A strong impression in his first innings
Shashank Singh, made his way into the playing eleven of Hyderabad in their third match. Prior to their match against Gujarat, Shashank never got the chance to bat in any of the five matches. When he got the chance, he came out all guns blazing.
The right-handed dasher smashed 25 runs in the six balls he got to face. He struck three sixes and all three came in the last over of Hyderabad’s innings. His blazing cameo that came at a strike rate of 416.7 helped his team post 195. In an innings of 25+ for a batter in the IPL, only Chris Morris had a better strike rate in the innings.
Not a day for the overseas bowlers
Two of Gujarat’s premier bowlers, Ferguson and Rashid, were taken apart by Hyderabad batters and Marco Jansen, the destroyer with the ball against Royal Challengers Bangalore, was destroyed by Gujarat batters in this match.
Ferguson in particular, hasn’t had good times against teams from the southern part. In this match, Ferguson leaked 52 runs in his full quota of four overs, which is his third worst spell in the IPL. Interestingly, his two worst spells (0/56 & 0/54) came against Chennai Super Kings. On the other hand, Rashid had no answers against the young Abhishek Sharma. Out of the 45 runs Rashid conceded, 34 came off the bat of Abhishek. His spell of 0/45 is also his third worst spell in the IPL.
For Hyderabad, their star bowler in the last match, Jansen had a bad day at office. The tall lanky bowler conceded 63 runs in his four overs quota. In the IPL, this is the second worst spell by an overseas bowler. Mujeeb Ur Rahman for Punjab in 2019 against Hyderabad had conceded 66 runs, which is the worst.
