Tewatia helps Gujarat beat Lucknow

Pacer Mohammed Shami bowled a fiery opening spell before Rahul Tewatia smashed an unbeaten 40 to help Gujarat Titans register a 5-wicket win over Lucknow Super Giants in their maiden IPL match here on Monday.

Shami (3/25) bowled a fiery opening spell to knock the wind out of the Super Giants’ top order before Gujarat Titans Deepak Hooda (55 off 41 balls) and Ayush Badoni (54 off 41 balls) smashed fifties to help their team post 158 for six.

Skipper Hardik Pandya (33), all-rounder Tewatia (40 not out), Matthew Wade (30) and David Miller (30) then rallied together to take the Titans over the line. Apart from Shami’s three, Varun Aaron picked two wickets (2/45) while Rashid Khan (1/27) accounted for one batter for the Titans. Dushmantha Chameera (2/22) was the pick of the bowlers for Super Giants.

Hardik Pandya, Winning skipper, said, This was the right game for us to be on either side and learn, but have learnt a lot by winning. Shami is known for his seam positions and he got us to a great start. We would have any day taken 160 on this wicket. Mostly I’ll bat at number four, because I want to take pressure with my experience so that the others can play freely.

We want to win as a team and nobody can take the contribution away from anyway. It was quite humid as well, so I wouldn’t have finished Shami’s spell over there. Manohar is some talent to look at with the talent he has. He is someone who you are going to hear about in the future. Tewatia was sensational as well. Getting out to Krunal would have pinched me more had we lost, but now the family is neutral and happy. He got me out and we won the match.

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