AHMEDABAD: The 27-run humbling at the hands of Mumbai Indians seems to have come just at the right time for defending champions Gujarat Titans, who host Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in their final home match of the IPL league stage at the Narendra Modi Stadium here on Monday.
The Titans' impressive bowling line-up ran into a marauding Suryakumar Yadav at the Wankhede Stadium o n Friday, with only leg spinner Rashid Khan (4/30) coming out unscathed.
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In the batting department as well, barring Khan, no other player from Titans showed up. Khan smashed a 32-ball 79 to stave off a huge defeat and a subsequent dent to the net run-rate. This fact was reiterated by captain Hardik Pandya in an interview.
"It felt like only Rashid Khan turned up from our team. He batted and bowled incredibly well. As a group overall we failed to perform. We didn't have clear plans and the bowlers didn't deliver," Pandya said.
A similar mistake is what the Titans would like to avoid as the IPL enters the business end. Pandya would like his premier pacers Mohammad Shami and Mohit Sharma along with Noor Ahmad to fire on all cylinders.
The match against the deflated Sunrisers, who only have a mathematical chance of progressing, offers them an opportunity. A win on Monday would confirm Titans' place in the playoffs for the second successive season.
The Sunrisers, meanwhile, have been let down by the Indian batters in their camp, and it means they are staring at a third successive year where they haven't made the playoffs.
1/10:IPL: Gujarat Titans look to seal play-off berth vs Sunrisers Hyderabad
AFP
2/10:Consistent Gujarat
<p>Gujarat Titans pride themselves on consistency and would be expected to produce a solid show against Sunrisers Hyderabad after a rare "flat" performance.<br /></p>PTI
3/10:Titans on the verge of playoffs
<p>Another win should be enough for defending champions Titans to seal a play-off berth while Sunrisers are all but out of the reckoning.<br /></p>AP
4/10:Rashid shines vs MI
<p>Barring Rashid Khan, the Titans bowlers had a forgettable outing vs MI and no one had answers to the special hitting ability of Suryakumar Yadav.<br /></p>AFP
5/10:Gujarat on top
<p>Gujarat Titans remain the table-toppers and tend to quickly learn from their mistakes.<br /></p>AFP
6/10:Skipper Hardik
<p>"As a group we weren't there. In bowling also we were very flat. Didn't have clear plans or didn't execute," skipper Hardik Pandya had said after their fourth loss in 12 games.<br /></p>AFP
7/10:Titans top-order failed vs MI
<p>With the bat, the prolific top-order could not get going and despite a blinder from Rashid Khan at number 8, the Titans fell short. <br /></p>AFP
8/10:Mohammed Shami
<p>Mohammed Shami had a rare off day and he would be expected to conjure up magic with the new ball. Mohit Sharma bowled with the new ball against Mumbai but the move did not play off.<br /></p>AFP
9/10:SRH are all but out
<p>Sunrisers, on the other hand, will be at the mercy of other teams after losing to Lucknow Super Giants from a winning position. <br /></p>TNN
10/10:Bhuvneshwar Kumar
<p>The failure of the top-order and the star bowlers not performing as per expectations has let Sunrisers down this season.<br /></p>IANSNone of the opening and middle order batters - Mayank Agarwal, Anmolpreet Singh, Abhishek Agarwal and Rahul Tripathi - have set this season of the IPL on fire.
And it has forced the South African duo of Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klassen to save the blushes in almost every match - something they have been able to do but at the cost of providing the necessary acceleration the team requires in the middle and death overs. It has been down to the extremely-talented Abdul Samad to provide the late innings impetus.
The bowling, too, has lacked bite. Medium-pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar is a shadow of the swing bowler he was in the past, and T Natarajan also has not returned with the same effect post his injury. SRH's spin department is too dependent on Mayank Markande, who has done fairly well but nothing extraordinary.
