Shubman Gill Reveals Masterplan To Nullify Rohit, Surya, Hardik, Says "Decision Taken Before..."

Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill said on Saturday that the decision to play the IPL match against Mumbai Indians on a black soil pitch was taken even before the tournament began in the hope of keeping a potent MI line-up muffled. The plan worked to perfection as the Mumbai batters struggled in the chase of 197, ending up at 160 for six and suffered a 36-run defeat. "The decision was taken before the first match that the second match (vs MI) will be played on black soil. Yes, that was a factor as well, (MI's strong batting line-up), but this wicket suited us," said Gill in the post-match presentation.

Gill said such tracks would make boundary-hitting tough, as found out by the MI big-hitters like Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma.

"Batting on black soil, once the ball gets old, it's difficult to clear the boundary, so we tried to maximise the power play. We can all talk about plans, but sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn't," he added.

With pacers doing a good job, star spinner Rashid Khan bowled just two overs.

"I don't know, maybe this is the first time he didn't bowl four overs. I actually kept him for the end, but I thought the pacers were bowling well. Prasidh was bowling well, so just wanted to use the pacers," he said.

Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya blamed "basic errors" in both batting and bowling for their comprehensive loss against Gujarat Titans "Tough to put (down where it went wrong). There were basic errors in both bat and ball, we were not quite professional in the field - that cost us maybe 20-25 runs," Pandya said.

"They (the GT openers) did the right stuff in the power play, they did not play high-risk shots, they got enough runs (playing that way) and that put us on