The GT team plans to have a strong group of bowlers for the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL). They have good players like Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmad, Mohit Sharma, and Umesh Yadav. They hope to win the championship with their new captain, Shubman Gill.
In 2022, Gujarat Titans entered the IPL and won the championship in their first season. Their bowlers played a big role in their success. Shami and Rashid together took 39 wickets, helping the team win the title.
In 2023, Shami and Mohit Sharma did well again, taking a total of 55 wickets. They were praised for their hard work. Looking at how well Gujarat has performed in the last two seasons, let’s talk about their five best bowling performances.
Here’s the list of GT’s 5 best bowling performances:
5. Rashid Khan’s 3/37 against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in 2023
During a cricket match between GT and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the 2023 IPL, fans saw some really exciting moments. The match became really close and went down to the last ball because of Rinku Singh hitting five big sixes against Yash Dayal in the final over. But even before Singh’s impressive batting, GT’s spin bowler Rashid Khan did something amazing with the ball.
In the last over of his bowling turn, Rashid got three KKR players out in a row: Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, and Shardul Thakur. This is called a hat-trick, and it was Rashid’s first one in the IPL. He was leading GT because their regular captain, Hardik Pandya, couldn’t play due to health problems. Even though GT couldn’t win the match despite KKR scoring a big total of 204 runs, Rashid’s bowling performance was the big topic of discussion afterward.
4. Hardik Pandya’s 3/17 against Rajasthan Royals (RR) in 2022
In 2022, Hardik Pandya showed he could lead well. He helped GT win the big trophy. In the final game against Rajasthan Royals (RR) at Narendra Modi Stadium, he played well with both bat and ball. Gujarat easily beat the 2008 champions by seven wickets.
In his four overs of bowling, he got important wickets like Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler, and Shimron Hetmyer. This made it hard for Royals to score. His good bowling helped Titans keep the 2008 IPL champions to 130 runs. Pandya was also named the Player of the Match for his excellent bowling.
3. Rashid Khan’s 4/24 against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in 2022
Rashid Khan played his best bowling game for GT in 2022 against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) Stadium. Even though GT had only scored 144 runs, Rashid did great in stopping Lucknow from scoring much.
He got the wickets of Krunal Pandya, Jason Holder, Deepak Hooda, and Avesh Khan, and Lucknow only managed to score 82 runs. Because of Rashid’s excellent bowling, GT won by 62 runs. Shubman Gill got the Player of the Match award for his 63 runs, but Rashid Khan also got praised for his great bowling.
2. Mohammed Shami’s 4/11 against Delhi Capitals (DC) in 2023
In a cricket match between Titans and Delhi Capitals in 2023, Mohammed Shami, a fast bowler from India, did really well for Titans. Titans were bowling first after losing the coin toss. Shami bowled exceptionally well, which means he did a really good job.
In the very first ball of the match, Shami got Phil Salt out. David Miller caught the ball at a close position called short cover. Then, in the next over, Shami got Rilee Rossouw out too. This put Delhi Capitals in a difficult situation. In his third over, Shami bowled really well again and got two more players, Manish Pandey and Priyam Garg, out.
Delhi Capitals could only score 130 runs in 20 overs. Shami got his best bowling figures for Titans, taking 4 wickets for just 11 runs. Even though Shami bowled really well, Titans couldn’t win the match because Delhi Capitals stopped them from scoring enough runs. At the end of the game, Shami was chosen as the Player of the Match for his amazing performance.
1. Mohit Sharma’s 5/10 against Mumbai Indians (MI) in 2023
Mohit Sharma did really well in the 2023 IPL. He played for GT and took a lot of wickets, which helped his team. In one important game against Mumbai Indians, he took five wickets and helped GT win by 62 runs.
In that game, Mumbai Indians were trying to chase a score of 234 runs. They lost their first two batters quickly. But then, one of their players, Suryakumar Yadav, started playing really well and scored fifty runs. He was becoming a threat to GT. But Mohit Sharma stayed calm and got Suryakumar and another player out in the same over. Then, another player, Rashid Khan, got another wicket. After that, Mohit took out the rest of the Mumbai Indians players, and GT won the game.
READ MORE: Top 5 batting performances for DC