Xtra Time Web Desk : Gujarat Titans on Tuesday became the first team in the Indian Premier League 2022 to qualify for the playoffs as they defeated rivals Lucknow Super Giants by a margin of 62 runs, in what was a pretty tricky match.
Being put into bat first, Gujarat Titans were restricted to a total of just 144 in their 20 overs, courtesy of some brilliant and economic bowling by the Lucknow bowlers. Opener Shubman Gill played a steady knock of 63* to steer his team to a respectable total on a Pune pitch that was tricky to say the least.
Coming in to chase 145, the strong Lucknow batting line up was outplayed by the whirlwind of Rashid Khan, who took 4 wickets for just just 24 runs in a destructive spell of 3.5 overs to steer debutants Gujarat to their first ever playoff spot.
Speaking to the media in the post match presentation ceremony, winning captain Hardik Pandya lauded his team and said, “Really, really proud of the boys. It is a great effort to qualify before the 14th game in this league. To be honest, in the last game, we kind of thought that the game was over before it was over. We were always under pressure in all the other games that we won, and we felt that we’d finish off the last game with the kind of batting we had. That was learning we took. We just wanted to be ruthless today, and relax post game,”
“Our bowlers did everything that we asked of them, and we ticked all boxes today. I always feel that if you lose a game like the one we lost in our last game, we win and lose games as a team. Yes, we did not do what we wanted to do. We messed it up, but we messed it up as a team. Everyone stood by each other, and we had a get-together post game and made sure the vibe was always there. We were still on second spot and that meant we were doing something right,” added the 28 year old all rounder.