Five-Star Hardik leads Gujarat to the top of the table

Hardik Pandya led the Gujarat Titans to a comfortable 37-run victory over Rajasthan Royals at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai to take his side to the top of the points table. Pandya scored a fantastic career-high 87* off 52 deliveries, ran out his counterpart Sanju Samson with a superb direct hit and finished with figures of 1 for 18 in a superb all-round display to give the Titans their 4th win of the season.

Having lost the toss and been put into bat, Gujarat suffered a terrible start to the powerplay, losing two wickets inside the first three overs. Matthew Wade ran himself out in the second over after hitting a trio of boundaries before Vijay Shankar edged behind while chasing a wide delivery from Kuldeep Sen for two, bringing Hardik Pandya to the crease during the powerplay. The in-form Shubman Gill played a couple of crunching shots to get his innings going but holed out in the deep against Riyan Parag in the seventh over, leaving the Titans in a tricky situation at 53 for three.

From that point on, though, Hardik Pandya dominated the proceedings as the all-rounder batted throughout the innings and carefully picked his bowlers to attack. After consolidating for a few overs alongside Abhinav Manohar, Pandya launched Jimmy Neesham for a boundary before taking on Ravichandran Ashwin for two back-to-back sixes. Pandya was well-complemented by Manohar, with the Karnataka batter sharing an 86-run stand with his captain and taking on the RR spinners – Chahal and Ashwin – before departing in the 16th over.

Manohar’s dismissal brought David Miller to the crease, and the South African provided the perfect finishing kick to the Titans’ innings, scoring 31 off 14 balls and adding 47 off the final three overs along with Pandya.

Chasing 192, Rajasthan got off to a lightning start in the powerplay thanks to some sublime hitting from Jos Buttler. Despite losing Devdutt Padikkal for a golden duck, Buttler destroyed the Gujarat new-ball attack as he took three boundaries off Mohammed Shami’s opening over and creamed Yash Dayal for 33 runs in his first two to score 48 from 20 by the end of the fourth over. Buttler continued his onslaught with a brilliant scoop shot off Lockie Ferguson to bring up his 50, but the Kiwi pacer produced the perfect response one ball later, knocking over the Englishman’s stumps with an incredible slower yorker.

Ferguson also sent back the promoted R Ashwin in the powerplay, while Sanju Samson was dismissed by an excellent piece of fielding from Hardik Pandya. Shimron Hetmyer briefly kept the Royals’ hopes alive with a couple of boundaries against Mohammad Shami, but the West Indian’s dismissal ended any chance of an RR victory as Gujarat comfortably closed out the win by 37 runs to go to the top of the table.