IPL 2023: Gujarat Titans captain Hardik Pandya reveals his success mantra as a leader

Hardik Pandya-led Gujarat Titans defeated the 5-time champions, Mumbai Indians by a huge margin of 55 runs.

With a dominant bowling performance at Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat Titans have defeated Mumbai Indians by a huge 55 runs margin. Titans with a brilliant Spin bowling effort by Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmed have comfortably defended their 207 runs. Rashid and Noor Ahmed both troubled Mumbai Indians top order with their wrist spin. MI lost the first 5 wickets in 10 overs on just 59 runs. Apart from Cameron Green (33) and Nehal Wadhera (40), no Mumbai batters could contribute big in the chase of 208 runs. Rashid Khan in his 4 overs conceded 27 runs and picked up to left-handers. Noor Ahmed rattled MI’s middle order with his figure of 3/37.

MI bowled poor in the end

Gujarat Titans were once 103/4 in 13 overs. After this, Abhinav Manohar (42) and David Miller’s (46) partnership of 72 runs put MI on the back foot. Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma was also disappointed with death over bowling. He said, “It’s a little disappointing. We pretty much had control of the game till the last few overs where we went for too many runs. It’s just about execution… We need to execute what’s right, who are the batsman kind of things. But in the end, we didn’t do that and gave too many runs”.

Mumbai Indians skipper also blamed the MI Batting line-up. Rohit said, “Today our batting couldn’t get going. There’s a lot of dew as well so if we had batted well then maybe we would have chased it. But we didn’t start well and you don’t do that when you are chasing 200 plus”. Captain Rohit Sharma was out in the over where Rohit mistimed a pull shot against Hardik Pandya. Since then Titans bowlers had the game in their grip.

Hardik Pandya reveals his secret of success

Gujarat Titans captain Hardik Pandya has impressed everyone with his leadership skills. Titans are consistent with their performance and Pandya has remained calm in crunch situations. Talking about his leadership, Hardik Pandya said, “In Captaincy, I take the call at the moment rather than pre-planned. Captaincy is something where I just bounce my instinct. I and Ashu pa (Ashish Nehra) have a similar mindset 99% of the time”. Pandya used spinners from the power play and revealed the reason behind his call. Pandya said, “Today, bowling Rashid and Noor we knew we can take off the pace against batters like Green and David who like pace on the ball”.

Titans Middle-order batter Abhinav Manohar was picked as Player of the Match for his game-changing inning of 42 runs in 21 balls. Abhinav Manohar was happy after his batting and said, “I think I am lucky to be in this franchise. In the net sessions, we are given the freedom to bat as much as we want. I think I have been gifted to time the balls well and I have been doing that from a young age and to do it at this level it feels special”. Manohar smashed 3 fours and 3 sixes in his 21 balls inning.