नवीनतम
Gujarat, Rajasthan look to ironing out chinks in bowling
AHMEDABAD [Maha Media]: Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals will hope that their stretched-to-the-hilt bowling units will find their range on an Ahmedabad flatbed in an IPL match that holds a lot of significance to their progress in the league.
The Titans now have six points, and a win will keep them in the top echelons of the points chart, while the Royals, who now have four points, will need the win to wriggle free from the mid-table tussle.
The GT have scored three wins on the trot, and RR two in successive matches to be placed where they are now in the points table, but that mini streak hides a rather underwhelming bowling effort. The Gujarat outfit is riding on individual brilliance by pacer Mohammed Siraj and spinner R Sai Kishore.
But the form of ace spinner Rashid Khan and experienced quick Ishant Sharma is not encouraging even when they operated at the more helpful tracks at Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
Rashid, an accomplished T20 master, has taken just a wicket from four matches while giving away in excess of 10 runs an over. It’s easily the worst start the Afghan had experienced in any of his previous IPL seasons.
Ishant is a co-sailor in that ship of turmoil, bagging just a solitary wicket in three matches while leaking 12 runs an over. Unfortunately, the GT has no ready back-up available as pacers such as Arshad Khan have not really stepped up.
The Titans are also still waiting on the fitness of South African pacer Gerald Coetzee, as a hamstring injury had curtailed his participation in the SA20 before ruling him out of last month’s Champions Trophy.
His continued absence has weakened the GT attack with Kagiso Rabada returning home recently citing personal reasons. So, they might be tested by the Rajasthan line-up who has some explosive names in Sanju Samson, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag all have made runs at a strikerate well over 150, and Nitish Rana have scored at over 180.
The lone missing link is Yashasvi Jaiswal, whose 101 runs from four matches came at 131.16 and in that 67 runs came in a single match against Punjab Kings at Mullanpur.
