After much speculations and an outstanding display of classic performances, Gujarat Titans overcame Rajasthan Royals and became the Tata IPL 2022 champions in their debut season. This is something that we can call a dream run for Hardik Pandya and his men. They put their soul and lives into the match and they earned the victory. Rajasthan came out to a losing effort despite failing to score big in their innings.
Rajasthan skipper Sanju Samson won the toss and elected to bat first much to everyone’s delight. With a world-class batting lineup consisting of orange cap winner Butler and the captain himself, everyone thought of a huge score. Things were not felt right for Rajasthan right from the first ball. Yashasvi Jaiswal as usual showed some glimpse of hard-hitting and eventually got out in the 20s.
Butler’s batting lacked the confidence and charisma which we saw earlier in his matches, but he kept the scoreboard moving. Sanju came and hit some balls but fell too for Hardik. Rajasthan was in desperate need of a long partnership to keep on moving, but nothing happened.
Sanju started striking well but got caught out for an unnecessary shot and lost a precious wicket for the team. His sudden wicket loss got the momentum shift for the entire team as they performed like they weren’t confident themselves to do what they usually do. Devdutt Padikkal came and struggled poorly. Some last struggles by Hetmyer and the others led their score to 130/ 9.
Then came Gujarat chasing a score that they could easily attain based on their previous performances. But the Rajasthan pace unit came strong in the powerplays by taking 2 huge wickets and reducing the score to 31/2. A mistake from Chahal proved crucial for the team as he dropped Gill in the powerplays. Then came Hardik and he showed the captain’s innings. Earlier he impressed with the bowl taking the wickets of Samson and other lead batters. Now he showed his brilliance with the bat. Miller gave the support he needed and they crashed down Rajasthan’s hopes of kissing the IPL Gold for the second time in history.
Gujarat had a dream run in the tournament and showed other franchises what a collective team can do or achieve. Just putting huge amounts in the auctions won’t bring cups and trophies, you need to build a team that sustains, survives, and conquers. That’s what Hardik and the Gujarat franchise showed everyone in their debut season.
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