Captain Hardik Pandya may not have started his evening at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Sunday on a happy note, losing the IPL 2022 toss to Rajasthan Royal’s Sanju Samson, who himself had won the toss in the entire season only twice. But after that, Pandya, who was elated to see a record crowd of over 1 lakh supporting the home team, did not put a foot wrong, rather just could not even he wished to. Apprehensions about the new captain of the new team was always there ahead of the season, so was whether the allrounder – coming off a lengthy injury layoff – could both bowl and bat. He dispelled all the doubts as GT topped the league stages with Pandya himself scoring over 400 runs and sporadically bowled.
LIVE! IPL Final GT vs RR Latest Cricket Score And Updates
But he reserved his best for last with a spell of 3/17 in four overs to lay siege on RR power-hitters. Sanj8 Samson, Jos Buttler, Shimron Hetmyer were Pandya’s victims, which essentially has been RR’s batting this season. And with their big guns gone without much impact, RR were derailed fast as they scampered to get a competitive total on board.
Pandya came on to bowl only in the 9th over, but with RR struggling to get going despite having Jos Buttler in the middle. Sanju Samson was getting his eye in but Pandya, the partnership breaker got rid of RR skipper Samson with a hard length to which the RR skipper tried to pull, he was in no position to play that shot and was sliced one to backward point to depart for 14. Just one run came off that over.
In his second over, the 11th of the match, Pandya kept it tight and gave away just two runs with Devdutt Padikkal struggling to get going. The pressure was building on Buttler to up the ante, but Pandya managed to hit the perfect length to keep Buttler quiet. Buttler changed his tactics and tried to counter the short of length delivery by playing a deft touch towards the third man, but he got an edge and Wirddhiman Saha took a regulation catch behind the stumps. Pandya did not let up and gave away just three runs in the over.
Of his final over, the 14th of the match, RR’s only real hope of posting a healthy total hinged on Hetmyer and the West Indian got two fours in the over to get some momentum going. Pandya though was up to the task and bowled a length ball, possibly a cutter and Hetymer was way too early into his shot and was caught by the bowler. Pandya returned 4-0-17-3 – a potential match-winning spell from the GT skipper.
His 3/17 is now the second-best spell in an IPL final after Anil Kumble’s 4/16 for RCB vs Deccan Chargers in 2009 final (RCB went on to lose that game). RR eventually finished with 130/9 in their 20 overs.
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