Riding on a blitz from opener Shubman Gill at Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium, Gujarat Titans sealed a spot in the Indian Premier League final against the Chennai Super Kings. The home team defeated Mumbai Indians by 62 runs in the second qualifier on Friday.
Shubman scored a game-changing 60-ball 129 at the top of the innings, helped by handy contributions from Sai Sudharsan, who retired hurt at 43 and skipper Hardik Pandya, who scored an unbeaten 28. The hosts set Mumbai a target of 234.
Mumbai were waylaid by freak injuries to two of their top-order batters, Ishan Kishan and Cameron Green. While wicketkeeper Ishan picked up a freak injury after colliding with teammate Chris Jordan in the first innings, Green was hit on the arm by a ball from Hardik Pandya while batting early on. Ishan never came out to bat for Mumbai due to the injury and was replaced by concussion sub Vishnu Vinod.
Ishan and Jordan were walking past each other when they bumped into each other, with the English cricketer’s left elbow hitting Ishan on the left eye. The keeper immediately walked off to the dressing room. When the MI innings started, Impact Sub Nehal Wadhera took up his spot up the batting order. The Australian all-rounder later came out to bat again in the sixth over after the fall of Tilak Verma. However, he could only score 30 runs.
While skipper Rohit Sharma could only manage eight runs off seven balls, it was Suryakumar Yadav who raised Mumbai hopes briefly with a 38-ball 61. He was aided briefly by Tilak Varma, who scored 43.
The five-time champions then suffered a collapse, as Gujarat Titans entered their second consecutive IPL final.