Rashid Khan won MOM 4-24 as the Gujarat Titans beat the Lucknow Super Giants by 62 runs at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune on Tuesday to become the first team to qualify for the IPL playoffs. On Tuesday, the Gujarat Titans became the first team to secure a place in the IPL 15 playoffs after a 62-round win over the Lucknow Super Giants. The Gujarati Titans returned to a winning streak after a losing streak.
IPL 2022 brought big surprises, with the Mumbai Indians (MI) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the bottom of the IPL 2022 standings, while two new teams, Gujarat Titans (GT) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), were vying for a playoff spot in the very first season. Before the start of IPL 2022, few expected the new teams to dominate the way they did, with heavyweights Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings struggling and taking over the bottom half of the table. In the 2016 IPL season, The Gujarat Lions won six of their seven games, and in the 2022 season, the Gujarat Titans have also won six of the Gujarat Titans’ first seven games. 35-40 runs are the norm for the first six overs, and teams try to score 50 runs before the eighth. The 2022 IPL main clash between rookie Gujarat Titans and rookie Lucknow Super Giants had a similar scenario, with both teams finishing almost the same late powerplay score – Gujarat managed 35/2 while Lucknow Super Giants were 37/3 wickets.
Shubman Gill’s fourth half-century this season also helped win the Gujarat Titans. When the Gujarat Titans started this journey together, we believed in ourselves. Still, before game fourteen, we qualified, it’s a significant effort, and we’re proud of us,” said Titans skipper Hardik Pandya. Ayush Badoni (8), Markus Stoinis (2) and Jason Holder (1/44) spent the weekend at the club, while Stoinis was unfortunately out of the game. Deepak Hooda scored the best cameo for the Lucknow Super Giants with 27 balls out of 26. In the end, Avesh Khan (12) scored a pair of sixes against Rashid Khan to entertain the crowd, but the spin master got one last laugh that ended the match for the Gujarat Titans.
Rashid’s old team Sunrisers Hyderabad’s new batting coach, Brian Lara, reportedly stated that Rashid “isn’t much of a wicket-taker and just restricts runs.” The Afghan magician must have forced Lara to chew his words with a spectacular 4/24 effort that guided Titans to a 62-run triumph despite defending a modest 144/4. After Yash Dayal shot twice and Mohammed Shami grabbed the wicket of KL Rahul, Rashid Khan and R Sai Kishore went through into the LSG middle order.