Unstoppable Gill the key to Titans’ IPL title hopes

Shubman Gill is the toast of the IPL and most of the cricketing world. His form during this IPL season has been sensational. The Gujarat Titans opener scored a phenomenal 129 off just 60 balls in Qualifier 2 against Mumbai Indians to rocket his side into Sunday’s final of the IPL. It was his third century in four innings, and propelled him to the top of the IPL runs list, as well as to third place in the all-time list for most runs in an IPL season Kohli (973) and Buttler (863).

When a batter is in incredible form,it’s a brave person who will bet against that form continuing, although a great run of form has to end at some point. No one knows just when that will happen.

For Gill, it almost ended when he was on 30 against Mumbai Indians when Tim David spilled a catch despite getting both hands to it. That’s the luck that tends to follow the batter in great form, but it also hides how paper-thing form can be. One great catch, one low bounce of a ball or a bit of movement off the seam can be the difference between missing a ball and getting a faint nick to the keeper. 

Confidence is what drives batters forward and when a batter in form continues to not over-analyse his game then he’s most likely to keep scoring. The only danger for such marvels of the cricketing world is when they get that good ball or suffer a moment of bad luck.

The problem for the Titans is that this season Gill has been the only batter to put together substantial runs, his 851 runs being 526 runs more than Titans’ second-most prolific scorer, Hardick Pandya. They have succeeded through a combination of Gill’s runs and some incredible bowling from their big three bowlers, Mohammed Shami (28 wickets), Rashid Khan (27) and Mohit Sharma (24). Not only do those three top the IPL wicket-taking list but, along with Noor Ahmad, they all have economy rates under eight an over. 

Putting runs on the board remains the problem, however, and the five matches the Titans have lost this season have been when Gill has scored less than 46 runs. The matches the Titans have won were when Gill scored 63, 14, 67, 0, 56, 49, 36, 94*, 101, 104* and 129.   

It would be fitting for Gill to score big and the Titans to take the IPL title back-to-back in their first two seasons but cricket does not always give in to sentimentality. One thing seems certain, though: the fate of this year’s IPL trophy rests in the gloved hands of Shubman Gill.

The Titans go into this final as favourites, prices at 1.80 to win with bet.co.za. The Super Kings can be backed at 2.00 to win.