Who won yesterday's IPL match 2022, PBKS vs GT - Match 16?
Gujarat Titans (GT) thumped Punjab Kings (PBKS) by six wickets at Mumbai's Brabourne Stadium yesterday in what will be remembered as one of the most dramatic last-ball thrillers in IPL history.
Let's take it piece by piece. Shubman Gill and Matthew Wade opened, and the former made his intentions clear from the get-go, hitting two boundaries in his first two balls against PBKS' inexperienced right-arm pacer Vaibhav Arora.
In the second over, Gill hit three artistic boundaries on alternate balls against left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh - a checked straight drive, a stand-and-deliver pull and a crafty square drive. Wade tried to replicate the same from the other end but was outdone in the third over by Kagiso Rabada’s length-ball on the stumps that took the outside edge to the wicketkeeper.
This brought Tamil Nadu batter and GT debutant Sai Sudarsan to the crease. The left-hander continued the trend of youngsters tasting success in the IPL this season. He showed superb poise to hit 35 off 30 balls, including four boundaries and a six.
There was a slight moment of hope for PBKS when Gill mistimed a drive straight towards bowler Odean Smith in the eighth over. The Jamaican tried to cup it in his follow-through but it was too quick and the ball popped out. It was business as usual for the opener after that, as he hit boundaries in almost every over, dominating the front of square on both sides of the field.
PBKS leg-spinner Rahul Chahar looked the only threatening bowler and an extra push got him Sudharshan’s wicket in the 15th over. The youngster’s premeditated slog-sweep went very high and then into the hands of Punjab captain Mayank Agarwal.
Hardik Pandya came in with 57 runs needed off the last five overs. He hit two boundaries to keep the pressure off his partner but almost lost his wicket in the process. His mishit against Chahar escaped from the hands of a sluggish Rabada at backward square-leg.
The match was still in GT’s hands but Arshdeep Singh showed his class with accurate yorkers and slower-ones in the 18th over, conceding just five runs to push the required net run rate to 16 and bring some excitement into the match.
The penultimate over was bowled by Rabada and was the second most eventful in the match. It started with a no-ball. Hardik wasted the free-hit before hitting back-to-back boundaries. Just as the pressure wheel shifted from GT to PBKS again, Gill hit an uppish drive - a shot he had played so well hitherto - straight into the hands of Agarwal at extra cover. The youngster fell short off one of the best IPL hundreds by just four runs.
If that wasn’t enough, David Miller then surprisingly didn’t go for a big hit on the last ball of the over (it was the logical thing to do for even if he had missed it, the strike in the last over would have been with the already-set Pandya). He took a single to long off which Pandya accepted. Both were then seen cursing themselves for it.
With 19 runs needed off six balls, unprecedented drama ensued in the 20th over, which was bowled by Smith. The first ball was a wide. Miller swung at the second and missed, but ran for a single. Pandya accepted again but was caught short by Jonny Bairstow's under-arm throw that hit the stumps. The skipper was run-out and, perhaps due to the frustration of the match going so close, gave Miller a mouthful.
In came PBKS' nightmare from Sharajah - Rahul Tewatia. The all-rounder took a single on the first ball he faced. Miller hit the next delivery for a crunching boundary over mid-wicket, keeping the match alive with a guilty face. With 13 needed off the last three balls, Smith followed a moment of brilliance with an inexplicable one.
The delivery was brilliant under pressure and Miller could only dab it back to him. But for some reason, he had a shy at the stumps at the non-striker's end when Tewatia wasn't even much away from his crease. He missed and the ball rolled down to the deep, allowing Miller and Tewatia to switch ends and bring the equation down to the unprobable but not impossible 12 off two balls.
Tewatia has a specialization in winning the unprobable and he, in the most nonchalent fashion, hit two sixes over mid-wicket. The first just beat the fielder and the second went miles into the stands as GT won a cliff-hanger.
Waah Lord Tewatia,....
Need his statue in Punjab Kings dugout.
What a brainfade by Smith to concede a overthrow with 13 needed of 2. #PBKSvGT
As they celebrate their third consecutive win, PBKS will wonder how lightning hit them twice in the form of Rahul Tewatia.
Brilliant Liam Livingstone and Rahul Chahar's late flourish helped PBKS post 189 vs GT
Asked to bat first, PBKS rode on contributions from Liam Livingstone, Shikhar Dhawan, Jitesh Sharma and Rahul Chahar to post a competitive target of 189.
GT's Mohammed Shami and skipper Pandya took the new ball and came up with a plan to bowl straight and on a good length to Mayank Agarwal and just outside the off-stump to Shikhar Dhawan. Both plans worked as Mayank consumed a lot of dot balls and Dhawan almost chopped on his cut shots to stumps twice.
While Dhawan coped well, the PBKS skipper stumbled against the pressure. In the second over of the innings, Pandya picked the right moment to bowl a pacy 141 bouncer, and Mayank holed out a simple catch to mid-wicket for five off nine deliveries.
Lockie Ferguson came in as the first change and bowled wide of the stumps to Dhawan, allowing the southpaw to hit some boundaries in the fourth over. But the New Zealand pacer then uncorked a superb leg-cutter to PBKS' No. 3 and debutant, Jonny Bairstow, to get him caught at third-man. It was a combination of beautiful high-pace bowling and pin-point field setting by the Ahmedabad-based franchise.
Seeing the hard-length plan work, Ferguson stuck to it for his next three overs. Meanwhile, Bairstow's compatriot Liam Livingstone replaced him at the crease. The right-hander continued from where he left off in the last match, putting GT's debutant pacer Darshan Nalkande under pressure with 11 runs off the seventh over.
He tried the same against Rashid Khan's premier leg-spin, hitting a short-ball to mid-wicket. Pandya grabbed a superb catch, but he touched the boundary cushion with the ball in hand. One life was enough as he went on to blast a 27-ball 64 with the aid of seven boundaries and four sixes.
But you can't keep Rashid away from wickets. He got Dhawan out with a fantastic googly on the first ball of the 10th over. The ball took the thinnest of edges to the wicketkeeper and the PBKS opener got out for 35 (30).
Jitesh Sharma replaced him at the crease and was as impressive as ever. He and Livingstone combined to hit 24 runs in the 13th over, making sure that the momentum continued. Sharma tried to do the same in the next over but it was time for Nalkande to get some poetic justice.
The young pacer's deceptive slower-balls fell on point and he got both Sharma and Smith on back-to-back deliveries. Shahrukh Khan then showed why he should've been sent ahead of Smith by hitting consecutive maximums against Shami in the 15th over.
Pandya saved Rashid's last over for the last-five and it worked like a charm. He got both Livingstone - caught by David Miller in the same spot where Pandya missed - and Shahrukh - lbw while trying to play a sweep - in the space of four balls.
Bowlers Kagiso Rabada and Rahul Chahar were left to make the most of the last four overs. But their partnership lasted only two balls as their miscommunication and ball-watching led to the former’s run out in the second ball of the 16th over.
But just when it looked like PBKS had wasted a superb effort by the middle order, Chahar brought out the inner all-rounder in him to hit 22 runs in 14 balls, including two fours and a memorable six off Pandya's bowling in the last over. Arshdeep Singh also chipped in with 10, pushing the score to just one short of 190.
IPL 2022, PBKS vs GT: Who won Player of the Match yesterday?
A game to remember @gujarat_titans 💙💙💙 https://t.co/gyMxpL35DU
Although it wouldn't have been diabolical to give the Player of the Match award to Tewatia, Shubman Gill rightly won it for his 59-ball 96. He scored almost 50 percent runs in the chase and laid the perfect foundation for Tewatia to weave his magic once again.