Rajasthan Royals on Sunday exacted revenge for the loss that they suffered during TATA IPL 2022 final. The venue of the game was Ahmedabad as Gujarat Titans took on Rajasthan Royals. The 2008 champions had lost all 3 encounters against Gujarat Titans last year. As the fans hoped the 23rd game of TATA IPL 2023 season went down to the wire as Rajasthan Royals finally won against Gujarat by 3 wickets.
The story as it happened –
Sanju Samson won the toss and chose to bowl first as Gujarat Titans went in with the same team. Rajasthan Royals who were at the top of the table went in with one change as Boult came in for Jason Holder.
Hardik Pandya attempts to sledge Sanju Samson –
Sanju Samson who had a great 2022, has been having some tough times with the bat recently. The 28 year old was out for two ducks in the last two games as questions about his form came about. On Sunday, the Royals skipper was finding his groove.
That’s when Hardik Pandya decided to try and distract Samson and gave him a stare. Samson though played it cool and did not give Pandya the response that the Gujarat skipper was looking for from Samson.
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Samson and Hetmyer power Rajasthan Royals to famous win –
Having been set a total of 178 to win, Rajasthan lost Jaiswal (1) and Jos Buttler (0) early. Padikkal scored 26 before he was out with the score reading 47/3. Riyan Parag continued his bad form when he was out for 5 as the Royals slipped to 55/4. That’s when Samson and Hetmyer joined forces to add 59 for the 5th wicket.
Samson was out for 60 from 32 balls with 3 fours and 6 sixes. Three of those sixes came from the bowling of Rashid Khan of 3 successive balls. Once Samson fell the scoring was left with the scoring and he scored 56 off 26 balls with 2 fours and 5 sixes. Dhruv Jurel with 18 and Ashwin with 10 helped the West Indian with decent contributions.
Miller and Gill help Gujarat reach 177-
Trent Boult dismissed Saha early for 4 before Sai Sudarshan scored 20 off 19 balls. Hardik Pandya scored 28 off 19 balls with 3 fours and a six. The top scorer for the defending champions was David Miller who scored 46 off 30 balls with 3 fours and 2 sixes. Shubman Gill scored 45 off 34 balls with 4 fours and a six. Abhinav Manohar gave the finishing touches with 13 ball 27 with 3 sixes as the Titans reached 177.