IPL 2023: Titans go for the Gill, enter play-offs

Synopsis: Synopsis: Gill’s minimalism, Shami’s Powerplay burst, and Sunrisers’s tame surrender powered Gujarat Titans to play-offs.
How does a team that has Brian Lara, Muttiah Muralitharan, and Dale Steyn consently churn out such poor stuff this season? As a former coach of Sunrisers Hyderabad Tom Moody tweeted out near the end of last month: “Musical chairs continue to confuse and derail #SRH campaign!” They are now confusing and confounding the watchers with their quality or the lack of it. To no one’s surprise, Gujarat Titans amassed 188 (should have been 220), and defended it easily. Bhuvneshwar Kumar grabbed a five-for, with three of those wickets coming in the final over, before Titans’s Mohammad Shami picked up a four-fer to derail the chase.
Gill’s minimalic sways
At the end of Gujarat Titans’ innings, the broadcasters showed a flip-book of the centurion Shubman Gill’s boundaries. It was quite something. The absence of backward or forward movement was stark. Once he shuffled into his pre-release movements, he just leaned back or forward, shifting his weight according to the demand of the ball. The flip book just had him swaying back or front; chopping, jabbing, punching the ball around.

… ! 💪💜🫠#GTvSRH #AavaDe #TATAIPL 2023 pic.twitter.com/0lroDonlxm
— Gujarat Titans (@gujarat_titans) May 15, 2023
There aren’t many moving parts in his game, that does its bit in the overall aesthetic of his game. The head is still, the strides if any are minimalic (or non-exent in the boundary shots as it was on Monday), and one just sees his hands move and hip sway. His IPL captain Hardik Pandya is also minimalic with his feet, but has a more noticeable knee flex going, an extra element for the eye to track. With Gill, it turns even more ascetic; and one ends up soaking up the hand-movements.
Much has been written about his short-arm-jab pull and so let’s turn to the chop he uses to cut the ball square on the off side. Somehow, he makes a fey chop look fluidly aesthetic. His wrs are already cocked in his stance, and he snaps them to unleash that chop effect. The way he has consently hit R Ashwin has shown his white-ball class against spin, and Hyderabad had no one of that caliber to test him.
Gills’s task was made easier the low-quality bowling for majority of the innings, barring Bhuvneshwar Kumar. For three-fourth of their bowling innings, Sunrisers Hyderabad seemed lless before they woke up right in the end to pull back Gujarat Titans from a potentially 220-run position to 188.
Gill has fallen a few times in Tests to quality pacers, even in India (James Anderson and Kyle Jamieson in India) due to troubles in leaning on that front foot in time. An essentially backfoot puncher due to playing on cement tracks in his fundamental years, his Test game has had its issues in his forward play. And in the recent months, he has tried to get the forward-lean in going as much as possible against red ball. All that has helped him in the T20 cricket as well, it seems, as the weight transfer was pretty smooth on Monday night. Of course, the quality of the attack and the type of balls attempted were pretty average, but as ever his batting made for pretty viewing.
And once he stepped out of Powerplay – especially the fourth over where he unfurled four successive boundaries off the tripe offered Fazalhaq Farooqi, it was clear that only he can stop himself from getting a hundred. He kept going on and on, pulling, cutting, lofting and reached his hundred in the 19th over.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s second five-for
He took three wickets in four balls in the final over with a series of slower ones, and as he would say with a smile later, “Till 19th over, the wicket looked good to me”. He got Gill driving to cover and then opened the slower-ball tap till the end to see one after another perish. “The moment Shubman got out, we knew they were 10 runs short,” Bhuvneshwar said, without realising the depths his batsmen would plunge.
Sunrisers Hyderabads’ team members celebrate the dismissal of Gujarat Titans’ Mohammed Shami with their bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar, left, during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Gujarat Titans and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Ahmedabad, India, Monday, May 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)
Shami’s Powerplay burst
Yet again, Shami starred in the initial overs with the combination of away-shapers and the heavy ball. Anmolpreet Singh went for a pull but didn’t cover the away-movement, and holed out to third man. Rahul Tewatia was surprised the heavy ball, stabbing it to slip; and the away-shaper off a length accounted for Aiden Markram who got a leading edge to cover point.

Only Klaasen, as he has done through the tournament, offered resance. There was a splendid inside-out six over cover of Rashid Khan in the 6th over and numerous punches. In the 16th over, he retired hurt the bowler Noor Ahmed with a ferocious straight drive that hurt the leg, and nearly threatened to take out Shami’s hands with another powerful hit next over. He had the Titans worried a touch about the what-ifs but Shami had him holing out to David Miller at long-off in the 17th over (Miller had dropped Klassen in the 11th over and parry the ball over for a six at the same spot), and the chase fizzled out.