IPL 2023: Gujarat Titans vs Mumbai Indians, Match 35 - Talking Points and Who Said What?

In one of the biggest victories of the ongoing Indian Premier League season, Gujarat Titans (GT) hammered Mumbai Indians (MI) with all ease to climb up to the second spot on the points table. In the match played at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium, the Hardik Pandya-led side defeated MI by 55 runs.

Batting first, GT rode on the impactful knocks of Shubman Gill, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar and Rahul Tewatia to post a mammoth total of 207/6 on the board. Chasing that, Mumbai Indians tripped to finally end up on a mere total of 152/9, although Nehal Wadhera and Cameron Green's momentary heroics did invoke a spark in the franchise. For GT, Noor Ahmed claimed three wickets whereas Rashid Khan and Mohit Sharma picked two each.

Let's look at the Talking Points from the game - 

Shubman Gill's resilient knock helps GT attain a headstart 

Initiating the innings for GT, Shubman Gill came up with another gritty display as the 23-year-old took command of the GT top-order to make sure it sails smoothly in the whirlpool of Mumbai's bowling heroics. Anchoring the innings following Wriddhiman Saha's early departure, Gill didn't leave behind opportunities to score runs at an accelerated rate to perfectly steer GT's innings.

Playing for 34 deliveries, Gill hit seven fours and endeavored one aerial hit to notch up a solitary maximum as he finished his innings on 56, before handing a sitter to Suryakumar Yadav at the long-on, off Kumar Kartikeya.

Abhinav Manohar and David Miller's middle-over heroics get GT past the 200-run mark

Following GT's loss of wickets in a cluster, the proceedings were taken care of by swashbuckling South African batter David Miller and Indian batting sensation Abhinav Manohar. They started their carnage at a time when GT were reeling at 101/4 and put up 71 runs in less than six overs before Manohar's departure for 42. Manohar hit three fours as many sites to bring up those runs in just 21 deliveries.

Miller, on the other hand, continued to trouble the MI bowlers until well into the last over where he mistimed a Jason Behrendorff delivery to hand a catch to Suryakumar Yadav on the penultimate ball. He scored 46 runs off 22 balls with the help of two fours and four maximums.

Nehal Wadhera's promising cameo sparked hope but failed to guide Mumbai home

For Mumbai, Nehal Wadhera emerged as the only silver lining, having amassed 40 runs off just 21 deliveries at a strike rate of 190.48. He took on the GT bowlers at a time when the train had perhaps left the station to strike hard to register three fours and as many sixes. However, his innings came a little too late as it failed to do much good to the five-time champions as they could only manage to add 15 runs to the board after Wadhera's departure.

Losing Captain, Rohit Sharma said -

That's a little disappointing, we had control of the game and the last few overs went for a few too many runs. Every team has different strengths, we have a good batting line up and we back ourselves to go out and get that target, today wasn't our today. There was some dew and we needed someone to bat a little deeper. We came pretty close in the last game while chasing 215 but we didn't start well with the bat today and that is not the right thing when chasing 200+. Even in the last 7 overs we didn't have many batters batting in the middle.

Winning Captain, Hardik Pandya said -

That has been my motto, always taken calls on situations. T20 is very funny, a couple of sixes can change your mind. Captaincy is something I back my instincts on. Me and Ashu Pa have a similar mindset, we back our calls and we have similar calls. Today, the idea of bowling Rashid and Noor was simple. They like pace with Green and Tim David who are big hitters, and that's why we wanted to offer them spin and offer them spinners that are difficult to read. Wanted to close the game early because a couple of games haven't gone in our favour recently. (On Abhinav Manohar) I think it is all hardwork, he bats 2 hours in the nets everyday it feels like, he's been our best death overs hitter. We spoke to him last year and there were a few things he had to improve on, and this year he's come out blazing.

Player of the Match, Abhinav Manohar said -

Lucky to be in this franchise. We get to bat for as long as we want in the net sessions here. I practice a lot and have a lot of self belief because of it. That's paying off. I've been gifted to time the bowl well and have been doing it since a young age, to do it at this level feels like a dream. This game I couldn't start going from ball one because of the situation, but it was good to get my eye in and play my game.