How Gujarat Titans crafted the perfect season in IPL

In a format known to be notoriously fickle, the new champions hardly put a foot wrong on their debut

Sanjjeev K Samyal

MUMBAI: It was the sixth game of the season for Gujarat Titans, their second at Pune taking place in the heat of April. Hardik Pandya was sitting out with injury; Rashid Khan was leading in his place. Batting first, Chennai Super Kings piled on the runs, setting a victory target of 170.

Reduced to 16 for three, Titans were immediately on the backfoot as they started their chase. Already thin on batting, lynchpin Pandya was not there to hold the innings together and Shubman Gill was out for a golden duck. CSK were on top when Rahul Tewatia became the fifth wicket to fall at the total of 87.

It looked like the Titans’ game plan of building their nucleus on a strong bowling attack would backfire. They needed 48 off 18 balls, and it looked all but over. David Miller was still there but the other finisher, Tewatia, was out. To the delight of the Ahmedabad-based side, stand-in skipper Rashid Khan stepped up. He took Chris Jordan for 25 runs in the 18th over to change the complexion of the game. The target was overhauled on the secondlast ball of the last over with Rashid hitting a 21-ball 40* and Miller a 51-ball 94*.

“First couple of games we played, we won close games. This is a close game too. We could’ve lost four out of six, but instead have won five out of six,” Miller said after the win. Titans’ South African recruit perfectly summed up Titans first-half of the debut season. The team was playing daring cricket, pulling off wins from impossible situations.

In their next game against Sunrisers Hyderabad, at the Wankhede Stadium, Titans were left needing 22 off six balls during their chase of 195. Again, Titans pulled it off with four sixes and one four off pacer Marco Jansen. Tewatia (40* off 21 balls) hit the first ball for six and then Rashid (31* off 11 balls) smashed three of the sixes and one four.

It was the decisive moment in

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Played Win Lost NR/TIE their campaign. In their third game of the season, Tewatia had provided proof of Titans’ neversay-die spirit by hitting two sixes off the last two balls to win it against Punjab Kings. Doing it once can be a fluke. Now, they had won the third time, and the chase against CSK was achieved without their middleorder mainstay, Pandya.

Miller said the catalyst for Titans’ performance was the sensational show against Punjab Kings. When Pandya saw his team pull off such close matches, he was a bit apprehensive though everything seemed to be going their way.

“I think God is telling us I’ll help you guys. But it’s happening quite often that by the time the main games come, we might run out of luck,” Pandya had said after the chase against SRH.

The Titans captain, who

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Played Win Lost NR/TIE

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Played Win Lost NR/TIE showed that he was tactically astute too, needn’t have worried. His team turned into a well-oiled machine, topped the league table and by the time the play-offs came, they were oozing confidence.

Titans’ opponents in Qualifier 1, Rajasthan Royals, had put together their strongest side in many seasons. They were brushed aside with a ruthless display. In the first knock-out game at Eden Gardens, between the top t wo sides, Titans had moved on from nervous chasers into a calm and calculated unit. The target of 189 was overhauled with seven wickets to spare. In the final, Titans were all over Royals from the word go.

Chief coach Ashish Nehra has avoided speaking about his contribution but the players give a lot of credit to him for creating the right atmosphere in the side

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Played Win Lost NR/TIE while pushing the players hard in training. In their video chat for the official IPL website, Pandya said how the coach made them slog in the nets while mentor and batting coach Gary Kirsten spoke about how former India pacer Nehra impressed with his tactical inputs.

Rashid Khan put the success down to the role clarity each player in the squad was given.

“It was clear to each and every player where I am going to bat and this is going to be the situation I will face in the game and (he) was fully prepared for that. The balance of the team was topclass and that is how we got here. The environment always helps, once you have positive energy around you and the guys believe in you, automatically the performance comes out.”

Like Rashid, the other players too are all praise for the atmosphere created by the coaching staff. Nehra and his team chose to be with the playing group than have the usual boss-player

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RAJASTHAN ROYALS

GUJARAT TITANS

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS

MUMBAI INDIANS

Played

Win Lost NR/TIE relationship. “We were a part of them, it was not that we were coaching, we were facilitating them. Instead of 23 (players), you can say we were 33. There was no hard and fast rule, we used to play, we used talk to them, hang out with them. Nothing was forced, the players had the freedom to express themselves,” said Mithun Manhas, the former Delhi Ranji captain, who is part of Nehra’s coaching staff. The motto of the team was simple, said Manhas: “We just wanted to play our brand of cricket, we are not here to see what they do, we are here to do what we do.”

In T20, you need to win close games. GT’S last over wins this season included off the last ball versus PBKS, with one ball left versus CSK, with two balls left against Lucknow Super Giants, by eight runs vs KKR, with three balls to spare versus RCB and off the last ball versus SRH. It was these efforts that helped lift the team spirit and galvanised them into a champion outfit.