NEW DELHI, APRIL 5
Young batter Sai Sudharsan perfectly made up for the absence of injured Kane Williamson with an unbeaten half century and led the defending champion Gujarat Titans to an impressive six-wicket win against Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League on Tuesday.
The 21-year-old left-handed Sudharsan anchored Gujarat's run-chase of 163-4 with 62 not out off 48 balls while filling in Williamson's No. 3 spot. The New Zealander was ruled out of the tournament after injuring his right knee while fielding during Gujarat's five-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings in the opening game.
Delhi faltered with the bat for the second time in the tournament as it got restricted at 162-8 with Rashid Khan (3-31), Mohammed Shami (3-41) and Alzarri Joseph (2-29) striking with regular intervals.
"He (Sudharsan) has been batting beautifully," said Gujarat skipper Hardik Pandya. "You can see the fruit of his hard work. In two years he will do something big in franchise cricket and hopefully for India."
The express pace of Anrich Nortje (2-39), playing his first game of the season, briefly rattled the defending champions when the South African fast bowler clean bowled both openers Wriddhiman Saha and Shubman Gill and then captain Hardik Pandya edged fast bowler Khaleel Ahmed as Gujarat lost three wickets inside the batting powerplay.
Sudharsan then revived the chase by featuring in two half century stands as he added 53 runs with Vijay Shankar (29) and then contributed a further 56 with David Miller, who made a rapid unbeaten 31 off just 16 balls as Gujarat romped home with 11 balls to spare.
Earlier, Delhi's struggles at the top-order continued for the second successive game with Shami getting early wickets of Prithvi Shaw and Mitchell Marsh in his successive overs.
Captain David Warner (37) played onto Joseph's 145.5 kph delivery when he tried to cut the West Indian fast bowler, who was on a hat trick when he beat Rilee Rossouw with another sharp short delivery first up and was well caught by a diving Rahul Tewatia at point.
"Losing wickets in the powerplay can be a struggle," Warner said. "We have got six more games here and anticipate the swing upfront. They bowled extremely well. We were in the game but Sai batted extremely well and David Miller took it away."
Rashid squeezed the runs in the middle overs with his sharp leg breaks and googlies as Safaraz Khan labored for 34 deliveries in making 30 before top-edging a sweep against the leg-spinner in the 17th over.
Axar Patel tried to accelerate in the death overs by smashing three sixes and two fours before falling to Shami in the last over after scoring 36 off 22 balls.
