Rajasthan Royals’ Shimron Hetmyer and Sanju Samson have led their team to 3-wickets victory against defending champions Gujarat Titans at the IPL 2023 match, played in Narendra Modi Stadium.
With this, Royals have topped the points tally in the current season, after winning four of their 5 matches played till now.After losing the toss, Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson chose to bowl first, despite the pitch being suitable for batters.
Opening for Gujarat Titans, opener Wriddhiman Saha couldn’t give a good start and walked to the pavilion in the powerplay. However, Shubman Gill 45(34) stayed in the pitch and tried building partnerships with the follow-up batters including Sai Sudarshan (20) and skipper Hardik Pandya (28).
But, then Gill was sent to the pavilion by RR’s Sandeep Sharma. Following this, David Millar (46) and Abhinav Manohar (27) took the responsibility to score runs and by the end of 20 overs, GT managed to put 177 runs after losing 7 wickets.
For RR, Sandeep Sharma took 2 wickets, while Trent Boult, Adam Zampa and Yuzvendra Chahal clinched one wicket each.
Chasing a target of 178 runs, both the RR openers Yashasvi Jaiswal (1) and Jos Buttler (0) walked straight to the pavilion in the initial overs. Then, Devdutt Padikkal (26) and skipper Sanju Samson (60) build a good partnership. However, Padikkal was sent back to the bench by Rashid Khan.
After this, Rashid Khan sent Riyan Parag who had scored just 5 runs. Following this, powerful hitter Shimron Hetmeyer arrived at the pitch and scored an unbeaten 56 runs in 26 balls.
For GT, Mohammed Shami took 3 wickets, Rashid Khan took 2 wickets, while, Hardik Pandya and Noor Ahmad clinched one wicket each.