Ahmedabad: A pace attack comprising Kagiso Rabada, Prasidh Krishna and Mohammed Siraj does bear an intimidating look but the troika will have its task cut out when ‘Boy Wonder’ Vaibhav Sooryavanshi faces them on a batting featherbed with Rajasthan Royals starting as favourites against Gujarat Titans in an IPL match here on Saturday.
The season two of “Vaibhav Kand” has started with the 15-year-old demolishing the Chennai Super Kings attack for a 15-ball-50 but that was in a chase of 127 and against a poor-quality domestic attack.
On Saturday at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Sooryavanshi will once again try to meet fire with fire but there will be three international bowlers of repute in Rabada, Siraj and Prasidh, who would like to test the batting flagbearer for the ‘Gen Alpha’.
For Titans skipper Shubman Gill, one would expect that he would take a few more prudent decisions unlike the opener in Mullanpur where Siraj was given only two overs and Prasidh was introduced as late as in the 13th over.
On the batting front, the track at the Narendra Modi Stadium is expected to be a paradise where one can hit through the line. The trend in the tournament so far has been to chase and Rajasthan Royals with Nandre Burger and Jofra Archer, two tearaway quicks at its disposal would like to ask probing questions to Gill, Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler first up.
The problem with GT line-up is their top three batters, who aren’t exactly scoring at 200 plus strike-rate. Both skipper Gill (39 off 27 balls) and Buttler (38 off 33 balls) didn’t look in their element against Punjab Kings at Mullanpur. Sudharsan (13 off 11 balls) is also trying to get into the groove post injury break.
It doesn’t help either that the top three on whom the Titans batting hinges, haven’t exactly been in great touch and are fighting their own little demons. Worse, their Indian middle order comprising Shahrukh Khan, Washington Sundar and Rahul Tewatia doesn’t inspire confidence of the highest order.
Washington, a player highly rated for his multi-dimensional skills and was also recently a part of the T20 World Cup winning squad, has been an enigma in this format. With 529 runs and a batting strike-rate of 125 over 67 IPL games in the past decade along with 40 wickets at an economy rate of 7.71, the Tamil Nadu man in the shortest format has been at best a bits and pieces cricketer, who doesn’t fit any particular role or slot.
Against Rajasthan Royals, the Titans, if they bat first, need to score at least 220 to give their bowlers a chance to attack Sooryavanshi and if they chase need to restrict the opposition within 200. Their death overs batting over the past two seasons haven’t exactly been very impressive.
Tewatia, who rarely bowls even for his state team Haryana, hasn’t looked like attacking from the word go. Shahrukh has serious technical issues against good bowling and it is baffling that a coach of Ashish Nehra’s calibre hasn’t found a good replacement.
As far as Royals are concerned, the team looks pretty good on paper despite lingering questions on meritocracy being sent for a toss while appointing Assam’s Riyan Parag as captain of the side overlooking India stars like Ravindra Jadeja, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel.
How the batting fares on pressure days will determine how Royals will be doing this season — their last season under the erstwhile management before the Kal Somani-led consortium takes over from the next year.
