 "Shubman Gill struck a century for Gujarat Titans against Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2024. AP")
Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill is optimistic of his team making the IPL playoffs. Despite their 35-run win over Chennai Super Kings at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Friday, the odds are stacked against Gujarat.
Read | IPL playoff scenarios after GT beat CSK
The win pulled Gujarat out of the bottom of the IPL points table and into the eighth place. They have 10 points from 12 matches while CSK remained fourth with 12 points.
Gill (104 off 55 balls) and B Sai Sudharsan (103 off 51 balls) scored centuries to propel GT to 231/3 and then restricted the defending champions to 196/8 to stay alive in the playoff race.
“The chances of us qualifying was 0.1 or 1 per cent. I think all of us, all 25-30 of us, believe that we can still make it into the play-offs.
“Because I have seen miracles happen with this team in the past couple of years and we all do believe in that,” Gill said in the post-match press conference on Friday night.
Gill felt GT were some runs short considering how he and Sudharsan were going at one stage.
“When I got out, I was a bit frustrated. I thought as a batting unit, we left 10-25 runs out there. At one point we were 195/0 in 15 overs, so I thought that 250 was a pretty gettable score and I was thinking about that.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“It is as satisfactory as any hundred. We lost our last three games and it was important for us to win this one and that is what me and Sai were discussing. We were trying to maximise every opportunity and every challenge that was thrown at us.”
Gill, who replaced Hardik Pandya as captain at the start of the season following his move to Mumbai Indians, also had words of appreciation for opening partner Sudharsan.
“Last year he (Sudharsan) missed a hundred in the final, having come back and the way he played in the middle overs is exceptional.
“He is someone who works very hard on his game and for someone like him to be able to execute those shots was just magnificent,” Gill said.
Talking about the talismanic MS Dhoni, who played a 11-ball 26-run cameo with three sixes, and his fan following, Gill said, “Wherever Mahi bhai plays, it is their (CSK) home ground, so nothing different with that.
“But at least, when we were scoring, people were cheering for us and when we visited Chepauk, it was complete silence when we hit boundaries or took a wicket,” he concluded.