Gill, Buttler and Sai Sudharsan help GT post 224 against SRH

The Gujarat Titans (GT) top three continued their purple patch, scoring 48, 76 and 24, to help them post 224 against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). B Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler and Shubman Gill are now Nos. 1, 3 and 4 on the leader board for runs in this IPL. Gill scored 76 off 38 balls, Sudharsan 48 off 23, and Buttler 64 off 37.

Buttler's innings was important because it came when the SRH bowlers had got their act together. At the start, SRH put in arguably the worst bowling performance of the year. Mohammed Shami was sluggish, and struggled on the line on both sides of the wicket; Pat Cummins offered three half volleys in his one over; and Harshal Patel bowled full tosses. The result was GT's biggest-ever powerplay, 82 for 0, without playing a shot in anger. A measure of how little they had to venture was how only four of these runs came through false shots.

Shami offered a leg-side freebie to Gill in the first over, and then got cut and pulled for five fours by Sai Sudharsan in the third. Cummins then provided Gill the leg-up by bowling in the slot for two fours and a six. The bleeding stopped only when Zeeshan Ansari had Sai Sudharsan caught at the wicket while trying to run the ball behind square.

It resulted in two overs without a boundary, but Gill and Buttler picked up again. The first unforced error from GT came at the end of the 13th over when Gill just ambled through for a single, allowing Heinrich Klaasen to pull off a deflection run-out MS Dhoni would be proud of.

Washington Sundar never really got a measure of the pace of the pitch, which should suggest GT had put on a good score. However, a tired Buttler in the 40-plus degrees of heat found enough sixes to take GT past 220.