Last Update on: April 17th, 2023 at 10:02 am
The Gujarat Titans (GT) lost by 3 wickets against the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the 23rd match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday, April 16. Skipper Hardik Pandya was furious with Mohammed Shami’s bowling in the penultimate over of the match.
The Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson came to the crease after the two early wickets in the 178-run chase. Samson took time to settle at the crease and changed the momentum with three sixes off Rashid Khan’s bowling. Shimron Hetmyer finished the match with a brilliant half-century of 56 runs off 26 balls.
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Hardik Pandya was frustrated and screamed in anger towards Mohammed Shami after the pacer conceded fours and sixes to Ravichandran Ashwin. This incident took place in the 19th over of Rajasthan’s innings. Ashwin came to the crease after the dismissal of Dhruv Jurel and smashed two back-to-back boundaries on his first two balls.
However, Shami made a comeback to dismiss Ashwin on the next ball, but it came very late as the cameo knock helped the Rajasthan team get closer to the target. Surprisingly, Hardik gave the ball to Noor Ahmed to bowl the last over. Shimron Hetmyer smashed two and six off the first two balls and helped his team win.
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Earlier, Mohammed Shami bowled a brilliant spell with a new ball. The right-arm pacer conceded just 9 runs in his first three overs, including the wicket of inform batter, Jos Buttler. The 32-year-old was unplayable in the power play and used the conditions well to move the ball in both directions.
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In his post-match conference, Hardik Pandya said that the bowlers didn’t execute their plans in the final overs. Pandya admitted that they were short by 10 runs, and that should have gone a little harder to go past the 200-mark.
“To be honest no (didn’t expect the loss after the powerplay), but that’s the beauty about this game. The game is never over till it’s over, another lesson for us. (Noor Ahmad) He’s someone who’s difficult to pick, got us the big breakthrough but the other bowlers didn’t execute,” Pandya said.
“Body is good, everything is good. It’s a very long tournament. A lot of matches left, we still need to play a lot of group cricket even if we had won today. (On Gujarat’s score) I felt short. After I got out, they bowled a couple of good overs, but we should have gone a little harder and got to 200. We did cover it well but when I was watching from outside, I did feel that we were 10 runs maybe short,” he added.
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