Many may have been forced to think of the ‘you have just dropped the cup, mate’ moment when Rajasthan Royals’ Yuzvendra Chahal made a valiant effort at short square-leg to catch Shubman Gill sent down by Trent Boult. That was the fourth delivery of Gujarat Titans’ run-chase, pursuing a modest target of 131 and the first faced by the young right-handed opener.
That drop by Chahal, positioned especially for that chance created by the intelligent left-arm pacer from New Zealand, was only incidental in the context of the IPL final but was not the turning point. For, Titans have, across the 16 matches that they played in their inaugural IPL season, shown collective team effort that took them to the IPL 2022 summit, someone or the other putting his hands up and taking the team through. It must be said that Chahal did make a good attempt in catching it, diving and getting his hands to the ball but having no control over it.
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As it turned out, it was Gill who hit the winning shot, a six pulled over deep backward square-leg off another Royals left-arm pacer, Obed McCoy, sending the ball into one section of the 1,04,859 crowd that assembled to witness the summit clash at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Motera, Ahmedabad, on Sunday night. Gill remained unbeaten on 45, providing no further chance and played a sheet anchor role with stands of 63 with his skipper Hardik Pandya and 47 for the unbroken fourth wicket with David Miller (32*)
Titans made the IPL final a one-sided affair. There were so many expectations from the top two teams that finished No. 1 and 2 at the end of the league stage. Titans’ seven-wicket win in the final – coincidentally three of the four Playoffs, final included, ended in identical seven-wicket victories – made it totally a lop-sided affair after restricting Royals to a mere 130 for nine. The second-lowest total in the IPL finals was not going to win the Royals the match, especially against a team that has chased successfully more often than not.
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The pitch for the final was the same that was used for the second qualifier that Royals won against Royal Challengers Bangalore by seven wickets on Friday night. There was good bounce on the pitch, though Royals captain Sanju Samson reckoned that the pitch was stickier and did not want to bat when there was more wear and tear. The likes of Prasidh Krishna got some extra bounce for the second successive match while the spinners did not get much purchase – only six wickets went to the slow bowlers out of the 23 to fall in the two matches played at this venue.
Titans had Royals on a leash in the final. They did not let them run away with a huge Powerplay score, containing them to only 44, and were magnificent in the middle overs, the nine-over passage from over Nos. 7 to 15 cost them only 50 runs for four wickets, skipper Hardik Pandya and leg-spinner Rashid Khan being the key for containing the Royals, the captain striking three times, all dangerous batsmen and match-winners in their own right – Sanju Samson, Orange Cap winner Jos Buttler and Shimron Hetmyer – in one four-over spell of three for 17, his best bowling figures ever in IPL. Khan proved why he is among the best T20 bowlers in the world today. He did not give easy runs, only one four scored off his four overs, and ended up picking the struggling Royals’ left-hander Devdutt Padikkal, whose batting position in the tournament was moved from No. 4 at the start to No. 3 and then to opening the innings before moving back to No. 4.
Khan gave only 18 runs while Pandya and he combined to bowl 23 dot balls, almost four overs. There itself the final was half won by Titans.
Steady batting line-up
Unlike some of the other teams in IPL, the Titans had a steady batting line-up. Shubman Gill opened initially with Matthew Wade but later with Wriddhiman Saha, who was brought into the team after five matches. Wade was pushed to No. 3 while captain Pandya was the designated No. 4, a position where the 28-year-old took the responsibility of seeing his team to safety and that demanded him to curb his attacking instincts.
As much as he admirably led the side throughout the tournament, giving his players the freedom to excel in their roles, Pandya took the No. 4 spot remarkably well. To score 487 runs – the highest for Titans – at 44.27 with four fifties and to double up as a medium-pacer and bowling four overs in five matches while in some of the others he bowled only when required to finish with eight wickets – spoke of true all-round performance and leading from the front.
Pandya has tasted IPL titles four times with Mumbai Indians since his maiden season in 2015. But, when it came to the finals, he has not delivered for MI, falling for 0 (2015), 10 (2017), 16 (2019) and 3 (2020), though his role was to hit in the end overs. In his fifth IPL final, he led by example with a true all-round performance (34 to go with his three wickets that he was named Man of the Match).
Without a doubt, Pandya thrived on the responsibility as a captain. Making him more mature, changing into a better cricketer and a person, and his IPL performances have also helped him return to the Indian team for the upcoming T20I series against South Africa after his back injury kept him out after the T20 World Cup last year.
Killer Miller – The Finisher
The No. 5 position belonged to David Miller, who has taken his game a few notches higher with his finisher’s role brilliantly. So much so that in the eight successful chases for Titans, Miller has been till the end in six of them, remaining unbeaten. Needless to say, the South African tops the batting averages for his team with 68.72 after accumulating 481 runs in 16 innings with nine not outs and a highest of 94 not out against Chennai Super Kings in Pune.
Titans have won eight matches this IPL by chasing targets. Miller’s tally in these run chases was 301 at an average of 150.50. It was only ideal that Miller was there till the end when the Titans sealed their final victory with an unbeaten 32 on Sunday.
Along with Miller, the Titans had Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan to do the finishing acts, and they have delivered at crunch situations more often than not. Who can forget Rashid Khan destroying Chennai Super Kings in Pune in the company of Miller or Tewatia scoring those two consecutive sixes off the last two balls of the match against Punjab Kings at Brabourne Stadium when Titans needed exactly 12 to win, Odean Smith being the unlucky bowler?
The Express Pace Battery
The Titans’ bowling was in able hands. They have had a good mixture of experience and youth, pace and spin. Md Shami regularly provided the early breakthroughs that he took 11 of his 20 wickets in the Power Play. He had good support with the new ball at the other end from left-armer Yash Dayal while Khan led the spin department like only he does, finishing with 19. New Zealander Lockie Ferguson bowled some express deliveries while left-arm spinner Sai Kishore showed he can be a force to reckon with if given more opportunities.
There were some individual brilliances from IPL first-timers like Abhinav Manohar, who played some useful knocks in the initial stages of the tournament in the lower middle order, and Sai Sudharshan, who showed glimpses of what he is capable of at No. 3.
Not many expected Titans to go all the way to lifting the trophy and do what Rajasthan Royals did in 2008, win the IPL title in their maiden IPL season. But Titans believed in themselves, a collective effort right through the tournament helping them reach the pinnacle, becoming the seventh team out of 15 that have participated in this league across 15 editions.
Pandya joined such illustrious captains as Rohit Sharma (Mumbai Indians), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Chennai Super Kings), Gautam Gambhir (Kolkata Knight Riders), Late Shane Warne (Rajasthan Royals), Adam Gilchrist (Deccan Chargers) and David Warne (Sunrisers Hyderabad) to have led his side to IPL triumph.
By leading his team to IPL triumph, Pandya’s approach towards cricket will change when it comes to international cricket. He will play with more responsibility, think more about his game and his teammates, bat with more responsibility and see that his team is well-placed. And when it comes to bowling, and if his back allows him to, he can be a world-class all-rounder that the Indian team is still looking for, something that he ought to have been much earlier but for injuries curtailing his progress.
Pandya knows what it means to be defending an IPL title. His experience with MI in the past, and the guidance of able support staff that includes head coach Ashish Nehra and consultant/batting coach Gary Kirsten, will come in handy when the Titans return to IPL action next year.
Until then, the Titans deserve all the accolades that come their way for the way they went about winning the tournament.
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