Ahmedabad: Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals will hope that their stretched-to-the-hilt bowling units will find their range on an Ahmedabad flatbed in an IPL match that holds a lot of significance to their progress in the league.
The Titans now have six points, and a win will keep them in the top echelons of the points chart, while the Royals, who now have four points, will need the win to wriggle free from the mid-table tussle.
The GT have scored three wins on the trot, and RR two in successive matches to be placed where they are now in the points table, but that mini streak hides a rather underwhelming bowling effort.
The Gujarat outfit is riding on individual brilliance by pacer Mohammed Siraj and spinner R Sai Kishore.
But the form of ace spinner Rashid Khan and experienced quick Ishant Sharma is not encouraging even when they operated at the more helpful tracks at Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
Rashid, an accomplished T20 master, has taken just a wicket from four matches while giving away in excess of 10 runs an over. It’s easily the worst start the Afghan had experienced in any of his previous IPL seasons.
Ishant is a co-sailor in that ship of turmoil, bagging just a solitary wicket in three matches while leaking 12 runs an over.
Unfortunately, the GT has no ready back-up available as pacers such as Arshad Khan have not really stepped up.
The Titans are also still waiting on the fitness of South African pacer Gerald Coetzee, as a hamstring injury had curtailed his participation in the SA20 before ruling him out of last month’s Champions Trophy.
His continued absence has weakened the GT attack with Kagiso Rabada returning home recently citing personal reasons.
So, they might be tested by the Rajasthan line-up who has some explosive names in Sanju Samson, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag all have made runs at a strike-rate well over 150, and Nitsh Rana have scored at over 180.
The lone missing link is Yashasvi Jaiswal, whose 101 runs from four matches came at 131.16 and in that 67 runs came in a single match against Punjab Kings at Mullanpur.
The Royals will hope him to continue in the same vein in this match, as even the Indian team management is keeping a close eye on the left-hander’s outings.
In the bowling department, RR has a deeper issue as except pacer Sandeep Sharma none of the other bowlers have been able to stem the run flow.
However, Jofra Archer’s effort against Punjab Kings (4-0-25-3) will offer them a semblance of consolation going into a potentially high-scoring game.
The Ahmedabad stadium has produced scores 243, 232, 196 and 160 in the last four completed innings here.
Hence, it will leave some creases on the foreheads of the RR bowlers, who will be up against a fine batting side of GT.
The home side batters such as skipper Shubman Gill, Jos Buttler, Sherfane Rutherford and B Sai Sudharsan are in fine touch in this IPL.
The excellent effort of Washington Sundar (49) against the Kings has added more teeth to GT’s batting unit.
Teams (from):
Gujarat Titans: B Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (Captain), Jos Buttler (wk), Shahrukh Khan, Sherfane Rutherford, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Mohammad Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Ishant Sharma, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Anuj Rawat, Mahipal Lomror, Arshad Khan, Jayant Yadav, Nishant Sindhu, Kulwant Khejroliya, Gerald Coetzee, Manav Suthar, Kumar Kushagra, Gurnoor Brar, Karim Janat.
Rajasthan Royals: Sanju Samson (Captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubham Dubey, Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel (w), Shimron Hetmyer, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Tushar Deshpande, Sandeep Sharma, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kunal Singh Rathore, Akash Madhwal, Kumar Kartikeya, Kwena Maphaka, Wanindu Hasaranga, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Ashok Sharma, Vaibhav Suryavanshi.
Match starts at 7.30 pm.
