Navi Mumbai, (Samajweekly) A responsible unbeaten fifty from Hardik Pandya and a quickfire 35 by Abhinav Manohar took Gujarat Titans to a respectable 162/7 against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the DY Patil Stadium on Monday.
Pandya and Manohar joined forces to stitch a stand of 50 off 32 balls for the fifth wicket against a Hyderabad bowling attack which had Bhuvneshwar Kumar and T Natarajan taking two wickets each.
Kumar had an uncharacteristic opening over, leaking 17 runs, including five wides twice. But he returned in his next over to take out Shubman Gill, who mistimed an uppish drive and was snapped by Rahul Tripathi diving to his left at cover and stuck his hand out to complete a one-handed stunning catch.
Matthew Wade and Sai Sudharsan hit two boundaries each but T Natarajan took out the latter, forcing him to drive off a slower delivery which was easily caught by mid-off. Pandya closed the powerplay with a drive past long-off for four as Gujarat were 51/2 in power-play.
He was then struck on helmet by a sharp bouncer from Umran Malik in the eighth. He shook off the blow by slamming Malik for back-to-back fours with a drive through cover and pull through mid-wicket. Malik ended the over by trapping Wade plumb lbw from around the wicket, going past the attempted flick.
Pandya continued to find boundaries, clobbering Aiden Markram over deep mid-wicket, also marking his 100th six of IPL. It was followed by him timing his flick well past mid-on off Malik. David Miller couldn’t go on for long, finding mid-wicket off Jansen.
He got support from Manohar, who fetched three boundaries off the outside edge while slamming a six over cow corner and collecting two fours through off-side. Manohar had luck on his side, being dropped at 21, 32, 33 before running out of luck when he holed out to long-off off Kumar.
Natarajan provided an excellent finish to the innings by taking out Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan in quick succession. In between the two dismissals, Pandya brought up his first fifty as captain of the side to take Gujarat to a respectable total.
Brief Scores: Gujarat Titans 162/7 in 20 overs (Hardik Pandya 50 not out, Abhinav Manohar 35; T Natarajan 2/34, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2/37) against Sunrisers Hyderabad
