Gujarat Titans won by 55 runs over Mumbai Indians at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on April 25. Mumbai Indians won the toss and opted to bowl. Batting first, Gujarat Titans posted a huge total of 207 in 20 overs, courtesy of Shubman Gill’s fifty and quick cameos from David Miller, Abhinav Manohar and Rahul Tewatia.
While chasing, Mumbai Indians lost both the openers very cheaply. Cameron Green scored 33 whereas Nehal Wadhera hit 40 but their efforts went in vain as they eventually lost the game. Noor Ahmad picked up 3 wickets for his side.
READ MORE: ‘Could have gone deeper’ – Shubman Gill on his knock
Here is what the captains and the player of the match said after the game:
Abhinav Manohar, Player of the Match said as quoted by Cricbuzz: 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.
Hardik Pandya, GT Captain said as quoted by Cricbuzz: 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.
Rashid Khan said as quoted by Cricbuzz: It’s good so far, few things I am working on to be more consistent with line and length. Happy that I got some wickets but at the same time, need to work on a few areas. Looking forward to the rest of the season as well. Those first 3 overs, managed to keep them quiet. As long as you’re hitting the right areas, I feel it’s pretty hard for the batters to go after. That was in my mind. (On Noor Ahmad) It’s great to have him in the side and sharing the bowling partnership with him since last year. That kid, he just wants to learn and he’s working so hard. Last year the way he was working, bowling lots in the nets, kept asking the questions. Even when I was in the gym, he was coming to the gym and saying, ‘let’s bowl here in the gym.’ At 1AM, 2 AM he was bowling with me in the gym. He wanted to get better and perform. He got the opportunity now and he’s been delivering. I am so happy for him that he’s delivering. It’s a great news for GT and also for Afghanistan.
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Rohit Sharma, MI captain said as quoted by Cricbuzz: 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.
