The new era of Gujarat Titans under the captaincy of young opener Shubman Gill got off to a bittersweet start in IPL 2024. The 2022 champions started this season by beating their old skipper Hardik Pandya’s Mumbai Indians by six runs. However, their final rivals in the IPL 2023, Chennai Super Kings, were edged out by 63 runs at Chepauk on Tuesday. Chasing a whopping 207 points against Ruturaj Gaikwad and co, GT managed to score only 143 points and suffered the biggest defeat in terms of points.
Ever since Hardik moved to MI, there have been talks about Gill’s role as GT captain. Recently, former India pacer S Sreesanth opened up about Gill and stated that Hardik’s absence is a blessing in disguise for GT.
“There is no Hardik in Gujarat Titans who tells the bowlers what to bowl. Sometimes you have to give the bowler the freedom to bowl. This time the captain is Gill, and I am sure Ashish bhai (Ashish Nehra) will saying ‘let ‘Them bowl’. Bowlers will also take responsibility with a young captain and sometimes this is the advantage of having a young captain,” Sreesanth said on FanCode.
Against CSK, Gill failed to live up to expectations as he scored just 8 runs off 5 balls before being dismissed by Deepak Chahar.
“They beat us when we were batting, their execution was perfect. We backed ourselves to get a decent score in the powerplay and when we couldn’t, we always played catch-up. It was unfortunate for us. In T20 I can always talk about 10-15 runs here or there but ultimately what matters is how much they got. On this wicket we expected to chase 190-200. I think it’s a great learning experience for the bowlers,” Gill said afterwards. the match.
“I think it’s better to play these kind of matches early in the tournament rather than mid or late. We always expected to chase 190-200, it was a really good wicket. It felt like we let ourselves down left while batting. (On captaincy) Lots of new lessons, new experiences and different things. It’s exciting to be captain of a team like Gujarat Titans, we have made it to the finals in the last few years so very exciting,” he added to.
GT will now take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in their IPL 2024 match in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
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