Faf du Plessis on Dinesh Karthik’s poor form in IPL 2023

Gujarat Titans’ batting mainstay Shubman Gill on Sunday sounded a warning to Chennai Super Kings with a scintillating century and an assertion that they have a great bowling attack to challenge MS Dhoni’s team “on that wicket” at Chepauk in the playoffs.

Having seen Virat Kohli register his second successive century to lift Royal Challengers Bangalore to 197 for five here, Gill upstaged the former India captain with his own special knock, an unbeaten 104 off 52 balls, which paved the way for GT’s six-wicket win while knocking out the home team in IPL 2023.

“I think we have a great bowling attack for that (Chennai) wicket. It’s going to be an exciting one, playing against Chennai in Chennai. Hopefully, we’ll make it to the final for the second time,” Gill said at the post-match presentation.

Speaking about his century, the player of the match said, “It’s all about getting a start and converting it into a big one. Thankfully, it’s working out for me in the business end. You have to keep applying yourself, that’s important.

“The new ball was holding on a bit. It was getting wet due to the dew. I thought Vijay Shankar was trying to go too hard. Once he found the momentum, he hit it a long way. I know my game… for any player it’s important to know who you are.” Besides Gill, GT skipper Hardik Pandya also lauded his teammates for the “calmness” in the dugout.

“The calmness which the boys had was terrific. We wanted to keep the momentum going. We have ticked a lot of boxes.” On Gill, the captain said, “He knows when he plays those cricketing shots, it’s a different Shubman Gill. He doesn’t give any chance and that gives confidence to the other batter as well.” He added, “We would have taken 197 at the start, but we didn’t bowl well. Special innings from Kohli, but we went too early for the death overs.

“I can’t ask anything better from the boys. Last year, everything went well for us. We were expecting people to challenge us. The boys showed tremendous character.” RCB skipper Faf du Plessis couldn’t hide his disappointment after the defeat.

“Very disappointed. We played a really strong team tonight, an amazing hundred from Shubman. It was really wet in the second innings.

“It was wet in the first innings as well, but there wasn’t a lot of grip in the second innings and also we had to change the ball quite a few times during the second innings.

“Virat played an unbelievable knock to give us a chance and thought that was a good score, but Shubman played incredibly well to take the game away from us.”

Dinesh Karthik’s woeful run with bat really hampered RCB’s prospects this season and on that, Du Plessis said, “Last year DK had a purple patch and was finishing games left, right and centre, but this season it wasn’t to be.