AHMEDABAD, India (AP) — Captain Shubman Gill and Jos Buttler lashed half-centuries as Gujarat Titans defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by 38 runs in the Indian Premier League on Friday.
Gujarat racked up 224-6 thanks to Gill’s 76 off 38 balls, Buttler’s 64 off 37 and Sai Sudharsan’s 48 off 23, and Hyderabad never look threatening as it was restricted to 186-6.
Fast bowlers Prasidh Krishna, 2-19, and Mohammed Siraj, 2-33, stalled Hyderabad’s chase.
Hyderabad top-scorer Abhishek Sharma, with 74, got little support from the other end.
The win lifted Gujarat to second on the 10-team table, while Hyderabad, a finalist last year, lay at ninth and on the brink of elimination from playoffs contention.
Hyderabad stalled
The 225 target was steep, and only steeper after Krishna removed opener Travis Head for 20 to Rashid Khan’s stunning diving catch and No. 4 Klaasen for 23.
Ishan Kishan continued to struggle since his century in the opening game as he labored for 17 balls to 13 runs, and Gerald Coetzee, playing his first match of the season, found a leading edge and gave Krishna a regulation catch at deep third man.
Sharma did the bulk of the scoring and hit six sixes and four boundaries before Gujarat sealed the game with four wickets for six runs within 12 balls.
Siraj took out Aniket Verma and Kamindu Mendis for a combined three runs and was on a hat trick but captain Pat Cummins defended it.
Hyderabad, apart from Sharma though, struggled to pose a threat.
Gill leads Gujarat to big total
Openers Gill and Sudharsan set the platform for Gujarat.
Their electrifying 82 runs together off 41 balls in the powerplay, including 13 boundaries, was Gujarat’s best ever.
The left-handed Sudharsan, who smashed five boundaries in one over off Mohammed Shami, became the leading run-scorer in this IPL. He’s also the second fastest batter in Twenty20s to complete 2,000 runs, in 54 matches.
Sudharsan was out in the seventh over, caught behind, but Buttler joined Gill and upped the ante with smart, powerful hitting.
Gill reached his fifty in 25 balls, and was run out at 149-2 on a single he called, by Harshal Patel’s throw deflected by wicketkeeper Heinrich Klaasen. Gill hit 10 fours and two sixes.
Buttler, dropped on 22 by Cummins, reached his fifty in 31 balls. He eventually fell to a catch on the boundary off a Cummins delivery in the penultimate over.
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