In the 18th match of the Indian Premier League 2023, Gujarat Titans faced Punjab Kings at their home ground in Mohali. Riding on Shubman Gill’s brilliant half-century, GT beat PBKS by six wickets. Gill, in his innings, scored 67 runs off 49 balls but failed to finish the game for GT. In the last over he was dismissed by Sam Curran while attempting a desperate heave across the line.
Thanks to Rahul Tewatia, who finished the game for the defending champions, as it could have been Punjab Kings’ game and would have been a bitter pill to swallow for the team. Reacting to his poor strike rate in starting, and then the inability to finish the game, former India cricketer Virender Sehwag slammed Shubman Gill.
While speaking with Cricbuzz Sehwag said, “He scored 67 off 49 balls but when did he reach his fifty? He reached his fifty off maybe 41-42 balls so in 7-8 balls he scored 17 more runs. The acceleration came there after he had reached his fifty. If even that had not happened then GT would have chased maybe 17 instead off 7 in the last over.”
“you will get a tight slap from cricket”, Said Virender Sehwag
Further analysing Shubman Gill’s innings, Sehwag said that players can’t think about their milestones first. This is not a way to play the game. He said, “You can’t think let me score a fifty and we will anyway win the match. This is cricket. The moment you think about your own performance (instead of the team), you will get a tight slap from cricket.
“You can’t think like that. If he had showed the same intent and played at close to a strike rate of 200 when he was nearing fifty then he could have reached his milestone a lot earlier and saved more deliveries for his team”, he further added. Meanwhile, GT skipper Hardik Pandya also expressed his disappointment. “To be very honest I would not appreciate the game going this deep. There was a lot for us to learn from this game… It would have been a tough pill to swallow if the game had gone the other side. I would like to finish the game earlier, not a big fan of taking it to the last over,” he said.
