AHMEDABAD: Sustaining the winning momentum will be the aim of Gujarat Titans as they take on Punjab Kings, who will be looking to arrest the losing slide, at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad on Thursday.
The Titans trusted their time-tested method of taking the game deep in the chase against Sunrisers Hyderabad and triumphed by seven wickets in their last game while Kings, in pursuit of 200 set by Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), were undone by tearaway pacer
Mayank Yadav
’s 3/27.
The Titans will look to captain
Shubman Gill
and Wriddhiman Saha for a brisk start and the middle-order comprising Sai Sudharsan, David Miller,
Vijay Shankar
and Rahul Tewatia to provide the impetus in the second half of the innings. The bowling group of right-arm pacers Azmatullah Omarzai and
Umesh Yadav
and Afghan pacers
Rashid Khan
, Noor Ahmed and veteran pacer Mohit Sharma will look to test the Kings.
After opening their campaign with a victory over Delhi Capitals courtesy knocks from Englishmen Sam Curran and Liam Livingstone, the Kings will feel they were hard done by Dinesh Karthik of Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Yadav of Giants. In both the contests, they were in promising positions before Karthik’s cameo took the game away from them in Bengaluru, while against LSG, chasing 200, the Kings bottled up despite a 100- run opening association between captain Shikhar Dhawan and Jonny Bairstow.
Losing three wickets in the middle overs derailed the chase, something which their assistant bowling coach Trevor Gonsalves zeroed in on as an area for improvement. “We were cruising. It was the three wickets that fell in the bunch due to which we were slow. So, we are solving out those issues,” Gonsalves said on Wednesday.
The availability of Livingstone, who came to bat lower down his usual batting position against LSG because of a hamstring injury, continues to doubtful on match eve. Gonsalves said a call on Livingstone will be only taken on the matchday.
While the Kings’ bowling attack of pacers Kagiso Rabada (4 wickets in 3 matches), Sam Curran and Arshdeep Singh (4 wickets in 3 matches) and left-arm spinner Harpreet Brar (4 wickets in 3 matches) has stifled the opposition, runs leaked by Harshal Patel and Rahul Chahar are a matter of concern. Regarding this, Gonsalves said, “Not really concerned. They are top-class players whether it is Harshal or Rahul. They have gone through a lot of situations where they have been hit. They will come back very strongly.”
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