Tewatia, Shami lead Gujarat Titans to maiden IPL victory

IPL’s two newest teams were involved in a nail-biting thriller at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai as the Gujarat Titans edged out the Lucknow Super Giants by five wickets in a tense last-over finish. The Titans restricted Lucknow to a modest total of 158 for six thanks to a sensational spell of three for 25 from Mohammed Shami before contributions from David Miller, Rahul Tewatia and Abhinav Manohar took the IPL debutants over the line with just two balls remaining.

With the combination of a sea breeze and the new ball, pacers have always found swing early on at the Wankhede Stadium, and Mohammad Shami extracted the most out of the helpful conditions as he picked up three wickets in his first three overs. Shami prised the wicket of Lucknow captain KL Rahul with the first delivery of the match, getting one to seam away and catch his India teammate’s outside edge. The Titans pacer also removed fellow opener Quinton de Kock with a pearlier that swung back in to clean up his stumps before bowling another nip-backer to remove Manish Pandey.

Between those two dismissals, Shubman Gill took an outstanding running catch to dismiss Evin Lewis, leaving the Super Giants in disarray at the end of the powerplay at 32 for four. From that point on, Lucknow turned to Deepak Hooda to lead their recovery, and the Indian all-rounder steadied the ship excellently alongside the youngster Ayush Badoni as the pair put on an 87-run stand. Hooda started cautiously – scoring just seven runs off his first 15 deliveries – but gradually shifted through the gears as he went after Varun Aaron and Hardik Pandya – who bowled his quota of four overs in the IPL for the first time since 2019. 

Rashid Khan dismissed Hooda on 55, but Badoni carried the torch for Lucknow in the slog overs, going after the likes of Lockie Ferguson and Rashid Khan to score 41 runs off his last 19 deliveries and take the Super Giants to a respectable score of 158.

No team has successfully defended a total in the IPL so far, but Lucknow enjoyed the perfect start to their second innings as Sri Lankan pacer Dushmantha Chameera removed Shubman Gill for a duck and uprooted Vijay Shankar with an unplayable yorker. Coming in at number four, the captain Hardik Pandya weathered the storm for the Titans in his new role, adding 57 runs alongside Matthew Wade.

Although both set batters were dismissed in consecutive overs by the Lucknow spinners, the Titans had enough batting resources to finish off the run-chase. David Miller and Rahul Tewatia demolished Deepak Hooda and Ravi Bishnoi in their 60-run partnership off 34 balls before Abhinav Manohar held his nerve at the death to hit three boundaries in the final two overs and help the Titans win their first game in the IPL.

Tewatia, Shami lead Gujarat Titans to maiden IPL victory