Gill, Rabada Power Gujarat Titans to 5-Wickets Win vs KKR

KKR Innings: 155-170 range (estimated based on chase) KKR’s issues continued — no clarity, no momentum. With just 1 point from 5 games coming in, their batting looked tentative again. Top order muddle: Finn Allen and Cameron Green’s lean run extended, and the Sunil Narine-opener experiment vs CSK meant Ajinkya Rahane, their best powerplay batter, was again out of position. Runs never flowed. Rinku Singh: The vice-captain’s slump rolled on. 4 innings this season, 1 six, SR 120. At the ground where he hit 5 sixes in 5 balls in 2023, he couldn’t find timing or fluency. Pressure of leadership + team’s slide is showing.GT’s bowling: Kagiso Rabada led the attack — pace, bounce, and key wickets to break KKR’s middle overs. Prasidh Krishna did his thing too: slow-and-short into the big Ahmedabad square boundaries, building dots and forcing errors. He’s now joint-highest wicket-taker this season and has outbowled Rabada and Siraj for GT on impact. GT Chase: Target knocked off with 5 wickets in hand Shubman Gill: The captain anchored and accelerated. Controlled the chase, used the field, and made sure there were no hiccups. Exactly what GT needed against a deflated KKR attack.Support acts: GT’s batting depth meant they didn’t panic even after a wicket or two. No Pathirana for KKR meant their death bowling lacked bite, and GT took advantage. Result: GT crossed the line comfortably, condemning KKR to their 4th straight defeat and leaving them with 1 point from 6 games. KKR began the contest with a questionable selection - they left out Finn Allen, their highest-ceiling top-order option - and a questionable toss decision - they opted to bat when the home captain, Gill, expected dew to set in later in the evening. And for most of the 39.4 overs of the actual match, they were distinctly second-best. There was only one brief period of KKR dominance, when they scored 52 in three overs (12th to 14th) as Cameron Green went on a boundary-hitting spree. Green's 55-ball 79, however, was a strange and ultimately frustrating innings: he struggled for fluency early on, scoring 27 off his first 29 balls, and finished with a whimper, scoring just four off his last 11, a period in which KKR collapsed around him while starving him of strike: they went from 147 for 4 in the 15th over to 180 all out. The rest of the chase showed the question marks that still hang over this GT line-up - they continued to huff and puff even when the required rate was in the region of a run a ball, and eventually got home with just two balls remaining - and KKR would have ended the match wishing they had scored 20 runs more. Gujarat Titans 181 for 5 (Gill 86, Varun 2-34) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 180 (Green 79, Rabada 3-29, Siraj 2-23, Ashok 2-45) by five wickets