In a match that had pulses racing till the very last delivery, the Gujarat Titans edged out the Delhi Capitals by just one run on Wednesday in a thriller that will be talked about for years. It was a result shaped as much by sharp captaincy as by raw talent, and Shubman Gill made sure to explain exactly how his side pulled it off.
With Delhi Capitals needing two runs off the final two deliveries, David Miller made a fateful decision, he declined a single off the penultimate ball, choosing to back himself to finish the game alone. That gamble ultimately cost his side the match. Gill, watching from the dugout, immediately sensed the momentum shift: “When Miller didn’t take the single, I thought we had a chance to win!”
The GT skipper revealed that the last-ball strategy had been carefully pre-planned. “We decided whether to go for a yorker or a slower ball, but given how the wicket played, a slower one would be difficult to hit,” he said. Prasidh Krishna executed the plan to perfection, delivering a slower bouncer that beat Miller’s bat completely. Jos Buttler then completed the job with a pinpoint direct hit, sealing a dramatic GT victory.
Gill himself had contributed with the bat, top-scoring with a composed 70, part of a team effort that saw half-centuries also from Buttler and Washington Sundar as GT posted 210 for 4. Gill believed the total was above par: “210 on this wicket, we were 10-15 runs above par. We thought if we bowl well, we should be able to win.”
For Delhi, KL Rahul’s breathtaking 92 off 52 balls nearly pulled off the impossible, but his heroics went in vain by the finest of margins.
The victory, however, came with a footnote. Gill was fined ₹12 lakh for GT’s slow over-rate, their first such offense of the season, and GT were also penalized during the game by being restricted to four fielders on the boundary in the final over.
GT hopes this hard-fought win marks a turning point in their campaign.
