"That's fine" - Shubman Gill's Hardik Pandya-like bizarre remark on his dismissal vs SRH

The 12th match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) was played between the Shubman Gill-led Gujarat Titans (GT) and Pat Cummins-led Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday, March 31.

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) won the toss and opted to bat first in the match. The record holders of the highest score in the IPL history decided to field an unchanged playing XI in the match. Titans, meanwhile, made two changes to their playing XI as spinner Noor Ahmad replaced pacer Spencer Johnson while Darshan Nalkande came in for R Sai Kishore.

Travis Head walked out to open the innings with Mayank Agarwal and the duo were not able to set the stage on fire. From one end, Head was trying to go all guns blazing, but he didn’t receive the much-needed support from his opening partner Agarwal.

Head and Agarwal were dismissed for 19 and 16 runs respectively and what followed next was GT making their grip tight in the match. Abhishek Sharma tried to play aggressively but was dismissed for 29 while Aiden Markram was cleaned up for 17. In the end, Heinrich Klaasen (24) and Abdul Samad (29) played an attacking brand of cricket while Shahbaz Ahmed chipped in with 22 runs as SRH posted 162/8 on the board.

Chasing the target, Wriddhiman Saha and Shubman Gill provided GT with an excellent start. The veteran opener batted with a brilliant strike rate of 192.30 and smashed 25 runs. GT skipper, meanwhile, was cautious in his approach and he scored a 28-ball 36 in the match.

Then, Sai Sudharsan batted well and scored 45 runs to lay a great platform for GT’s win. The rest of the job was done by David Miller (44) and Vijay Shankar (14) as the Titans completed the run-chase in 19.1 overs to win by 7 wickets.

He comes in day in day out, he practices his skills and he’s so skilled – Shubman Gill praises Mohit Sharma

At the post-match presentation ceremony, Gujarat Titans (GT) captain Shubman Gill said that winning back-to-back matches at home feels great. Shubman Gill said:

“To be able to win two matches at home, great. Our next match is also here and then we’ve got a couple of matches on the road. Hopefully by the time we come back, we will have good momentum into this tournament.”

Shubman Gill praised his bowling unit for performing brilliantly against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and labeled Rashid Khan as a world-class spinner. Shubman Gill stated:

“The way our bowlers bowled in the middle overs, especially Noor … obviously Rashid bhai is a world-class bowler and he’s always coming in and giving his best, but the way Darshan came in and bowled those two crucial overs at the death was very important for us.”

Shubman Gill further spoke highly of the veteran pacer Mohit Sharma, who won the Player of the Match award for his amazing figures of 3/25. Shubman Gill elaborated:

“(On Mohit) He’s such an experienced player, especially on wickets like these. He comes in day in day out, he practises his skills and he’s so skilled. It’s not easy in this heat to bowl four overs back-to-back, sometimes three overs back-to-back. But he comes in, bowls those yorkers, slower ones and mixes it so well. 

“The credit has to go to him for practising those skills and to be able to have the confidence to execute them in the match. In this heat, wherever we play in the day match, it’s easier to score with the new ball. Once the ball gets old and the wickets gets slow, it’s difficult to hit those sixes, especially on the longer side and that was our plan – to be able to let them hit the slower ones on the longer side.”

GT skipper got out in the 10th over during the run-chase as he tried to smash the ball for a boundary but was caught. When asked about his dismissal, Shubman Gill stated that he backed his shot, but was fine with his dismissal. He asserted:

“(On his dismissal) The ball was there to be hit, I was just backing my shot, but the ball hit the bottom and it didn’t bounce as much as I expected it to be but that’s fine. In T20, you have to always keep your options open and if the ball is there, you have to go for it.”

Shubman Gill signed off by showering praise on his batters and bowlers for doing a brilliant job against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). He also dropped an update on David Miller, saying that he didn’t have any major injury and was suffering cramps. Shubman Gill said:

“Once we saw how our spinners were bowling, we thought 160-170 would be a good score. Credit to the bowlers how they came in and restricted them to that total. Everybody knows their roles in terms of batting or bowling, Sai has been playing well, Wriddhi bhai has been doing what Wriddhi bhai does and it was important for us to be able to get Miller back in form. Just cramps (on Miller’s status).”