IPL 2024: R Sai Kishore spins web as Gujarat Titans overcome Punjab Kings

Shikhar Dhawan’s absence was felt once again as Punjab Kings (PBKS) succumbed to a fourth straight defeat in the Indian Premier League (IPL), this time going down to Gujarat Titans (GT) by three wickets in Mullanpur on Sunday. Without Dhawan, who has been out with a shoulder injury, Punjab looked insipid. Most of their batters seemed clueless as to how to take on the GT spinners, especially R Sai Kishore.

Punjab’s last win, incidentally, came against Gujarat Titans, on 4 April. This time around, the 2014 finalists, had no one to carry them over the finish line. The loss puts Punjab in a tough spot as far as contention for the IPL playoffs is concerned — They are ninth with four points from eight games and a net run rate of -0.292.

In Photos | Gujarat Titans get the better of Punjab Kings

R Sai Kishore shines

On Sunday, GT’s R Sai Kishore was playing just his third game of IPL 2024. And his first in almost a month since he faced Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on 26 March.

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Sai Kishore has found it difficult to find place in the GT XI ahead of Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad, the other two spinners. However, Sunday was the day of the Tamil Nadu bowler. And there was no stopping him whatsoever.

Naan dhan hero 😎 - Sai Kishore spinning a 🕸️ around the hosts at Mullanpur!#PBKSvGT #TATAIPL #IPLonJioCinema #IPLinTamil pic.twitter.com/BGApHDU9Eu

— JioHotstar Reality (@HotstarReality) April 21, 2024

The spinner was introduced into the attack only in the 12th over of the PBKS innings. By then, Rashid and Noor had three wickets between them. The youngster, however, got off to a miserable start. A fullish length on off, he paid for that delivery after Jitesh Sharma danced down the track and clobbered the spinner over long-off. Three balls later, however, the bowler would deceive Jitesh with a back of length, slow delivery, that the PBKS wicketkeeper-batter looked to loft across. Instead, the ball turned enough to go under the bat and hit the top of off stump.

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That’s how good the Chennai-born lad had started to become. GT knew that the 27-year-old would be effective against right handers which is why they brought him into the attack in the second half of PBKS innings.

Next was the wicket of Ashutosh Sharma in the 14th over. It was once again a full-length ball outside off from the lanky spinner, and Ashutosh on this occasion had mistimed the loft towards Mohit Sharma at deep extra cover, who took a nice and easy catch.

Sai Kishore then began varying his pace a little bit. He bowled a length ball to Shashank Singh in the 16th over and expected the latter to mistime the shot. Because afterall, the South Zone cricketer, who has played three T20Is for India, had been exceptional with his lines and lengths on Sunday. So much so that he bowled in such a deceptive way that made the opposition batters mistime the ball on purpose. Shashank Singh, meanwhile, looked to go down the track against Sai, but ended up hitting straight to the hands of the bowler himself after Shashank hardly got any swing of the bat.

It was only towards the end when the left-arm orthodox bowler conceded a few boundaries, two fours and a six to Harpreet Brar, but even the late Brar show was stopped by Sai Kishore after the former found Shahrukh Khan at long-on.

Quite fittingly enough, the bowler credited head coach Ashish Nehra for enabling GT play fearless cricket. “Ashish Nehra has created a beautiful environment where we can be fearless and play for the team regardless of the result. He told me to enjoy myself and gave me a lot of freedom to express myself,” he said after the match.

Rahul Tewatia the finisher

If there was a clear match-winner with the bat for GT, it’s none other than Rahul Tewatia. GT were in some sort of trouble at 103/4 in the 16th over. Enter Rahul Tewatia. He began his innings with a straight drive off Sam Curran’s ball in the 15th over and would nicely balance his innings between collecting boundaries regularly and doing the same as far as rotating strike is concerned.

Between the 17th and 18th overs, the 30-year-old collected four boundaries, something that put GT right back on track. Now this was clearly the fearless brand of cricket that Sai Kishore had talked about after the match. And the all-rounder lived upto his potential and expectations. Not to forget, the GT top-order and middle-order batters had combined to put on 98 before the southpaw came into play. GT must be thankful for the effort their bowlers put in to restrict PBKS, otherwise, even for someone like Tewatia, it would be a mountain to climb.

However, the Haryana-born cricketer took on the challenge with aggression and self-belief. By the 18th over, GT were 138/5 and a lot of pressure had been eased off the former champions. With victory in sight, Rashid Khan however departed for three after flicking towards Rilee Rossouw towards mid-wicket.

Then Tewatia, in typical Tewatia fashion, picked a full-length ball from Arshdeep Singh in the 20th to flick it past fine leg fence for a match-winning boundary.

Unlike for PBKS, this win for GT would certainly put them in contention for playoffs but in the IPL, anything can happen. PBKS, meanwhile, must hope they get their captain Dhawan back before they take on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on 26 April.