By BD Naraayannkar
Ahmedabad, May 29 (UNI) Uncapped Sai Sudharsan's 96 helped Gujarat Titans post 214/4 in the 2023 IPL final at Narendra Modi Stadium here on Monday.
Sudharsan narrowly missed out on his hundred, a knock coming off just 47 balls. Obviously, he was the gamechanger after opener Wriddhiman Saha's 54 off 39 balls.
Sudarshan was on a different planet, batting with such finesse that he kept finding the boundaries at will. He became the highest scorer in the IPL final as an uncapped batsman. The TN lad was bought for the base price of Rs 20 lakh by Gujarat before 2022 IPL season.
In eight innings this year, Sudharsan has accumulated 362 runs averaging 51.71 with a strike rate of 141.41.
After losing the toss, Gujarat started off with a bang with Saha and inform Shubman Gill stitched 67 runs in 7 overs. Gill, who has been in a murderous form, marched back to the dugout after star left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja after making 39 off 20 balls. He was smartly stumped by Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Saha went on to belt fifty, before he was scalped by Deepak Chahar who had dropped the opener when he was on three.
Capitalising on Saha's foundation-laying knock, inform Sudharsan whacked 6 sixes and 8 boundaries in his hurricane knock. Captain Hardik Pandya helped the team to get past the 200-mark along with Sudarshan as he blistered an unbeaten 21 runs in 12 balls, before Rashid Khan was caught in the deep for a duck in the last ball of the Gujarat innings.
Chennai tonight were off-colour in the field as they missed catches and run out opportunities. Chahar dropped a dolly from Gill on 2. Thereafter 30 runs were knocked off successive two overs, giving a huge momentum for Gujarat who were thirsting for it.
One of the world class fielders, Jadeja fumbled a relatively easy opportunity to run Saha out, but did outfox Gill with a beauty in the same over.
Tushar Deshpande gave away 56 runs in his four overs.
Chasing a target over 200 in an IPL final is a mammoth task, and the hosts definitely have an upper hand going into the break.
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