'You beauty' - Gujarat Titans pull off a heist in a last-ball thriller courtesy of crazy hitting from Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan

Umran Malik's excellent five-wicket haul went in vain in the end.

By Aditya Gajanan Kukalyekar verified

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4 Min Read

Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan
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Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan. (Photo Source: IPL/BCCI)

Wow! Amazing! Gujarat Titans have match-winners in their line-ups. How do you beat them? You have to feel for Marcos Jansen! The man won the Player of the Match in the previous game and ended up conceding more than 22 runs in the final over to concede the game to the Titans. Well, but nothing can be taken away from Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan who played some brilliant shots to take the Titans over the line in the last-ball thriller at the Wankhede Stadium.

Chasing 196, the Titans needed a good start and Wriddhiman Saha made sure that they got it adding 69 runs with Shubman Gill in less than 8 overs. But Umran Malik‘s bowling was completely on another level on the day as he first castled Gill and then stunned Hardik Pandya with a bouncer hitting on his shoulder only to later dismiss him. It was some intimidating pace bowling from the youngster as he kept on disturbing the furniture during his fiery spell.

Umran clocked more than 150 kph regularly to end with the magical figures of 5/25 in his four overs. At the end of 16 overs, when his spell ended, the Titans were struggling at 140/5 and had Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan in the middle. Not many would’ve given them the chance. But the duo fought hard to keep the team in the hunt and the equation eventually came down to 22 runs off the final over. Kane Williamson handed the responsibility to Marco Jansen to defend the total and most of the time, in such situations, the bowler is at advantage.

However, Tewatia had other ideas as he smashed the first ball for a six and then took a single to leave 15 runs for his partner to get off four balls. Rashid’s blade was now ready to take over the carnage and he slaughtered the next ball down the ground to make nine runs off three deliveries. Pressure was telling on young Jansen but he made a good comeback to churn a dot ball with a short ball.

Surely, SRH had got it covered now as they had nine runs to defend. But probably, the plans were not clear in the bowler’s mind as he was all over the place. He didn’t stick to the plan of bowling a short ball and once dished out a wide full toss and given that Rashid was shuffling a bit, it was a hit me ball for him. And he did so clearing the boundary pretty easily. With three needing off the final delivery, Jansen went short this time but on the leg-side and the maverick, in-form Rashid, the batsman, pulled the ball fiercely to take his side over the line.

Wild celebrations began in the Titans camp and there was disbelief in the SRH camp as it was their game to lose not long ago. Marco Jansen was literally down and stunned by the assault launched on him. What a chase the Titans had pulled off and it is not the first time that they had done this. They have always found a match-winner in these crunch situations and this time there were two of them in the middle.

Markram and Abhishek propel SRH to 195

Earlier, Kane Williamson‘s poor run with the bat in IPL 2022 continued with Mohammed Shami finding a way to the stumps through the gap between his bat and pad. The pace bowler then stunned Rahul Tripathi trapping him in front of the stumps. It was a good review from the Titans as there was a doubt over the ball hitting pad first. This is when Abhishek Sharma, the other opener, joined hands with Aiden Markram to take the attack to the opposition bowlers.

They also took on the Titans’ best spinner in Rashid Khan smashing him for 45 runs in his four overs. Both of them got to their respective half-centuries as well as the duo added 96 runs for the third wicket. SRH slowed down a bit after this partnership was broken with Nicholas Pooran and Washington Sundar not stepping up while Markram also got out at the crunch time after scoring 56 runs.

However, there was one final flourish still left. Shashank Singh was an unknown entity despite playing a few games this season with SRH winning games easily. When his chance came though Shashank showed off his hitting skills as he smacked an unbeaten 25 off just 6 balls to propel SRH to a brilliant score of 195 runs in their 20 overs. Abhishek turned out to be their top-scorer smashing 65 off just 42 deliveries with six fours and three sixes while Mohammed Shami was the pick of the bowlers for the Titans with his figures of 3/39. Well, in the end, even that assault didn’t prove to be enough.

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