By Prakash Nair 
Ahmedabad, April 17: It was never really in doubt. That is the truth of what happened tonight at the Narendra Modi Stadium. Gujarat Titans chased down 181 with 2 balls to spare, winning by 5 wickets, and for the most part, it felt less like a contest and more like a formality being completed in front of 100,000 people.
Gujarat Titans win. By 5 wickets. Three wins in a row. KKR’s season gets darker.
GT has looked simply unstoppable. Gill was calling the shots and took the bowlers to the cleaners. KKR were staring at another defeat. And that, in a sentence, is the story of IPL 2026 Match 25.
Gill Walked Out, and the Game Was Over
Not literally. But close to it.
GT reached 90 runs by the 8th over with Shubman Gill just four runs away from another half-century. In a chase of 181, that scoring rate is not aggressive. It is surgical. It is a captain who knows exactly what his team needs and is delivering it ball by ball without any drama, without any panic, without any of the chaos that defined KKR’s innings just an hour earlier.
Gill survived one nervy moment early. The ball was short and angled down the leg from Vaibhav Arora. Gill went for the pull but only managed a thick inside edge onto the thigh pad. It dropped just short of a diving Kartik Tyagi at short fine leg. Life given. Lesson learned. He never looked troubled again.
Gill completed his fifty, and GT were just one partnership away from victory. He eventually finished with 86, caught in the deep by a sensational Cameron Green, the same man who had scored 79 in KKR’s innings earlier in the evening. Green took a sensational catch in the deep, and Gill had to depart for 86. But by then, the job was done.
That catch, frankly, was the most spectacular moment of Green’s entire night. He caught the man who could not get out.
How the Chase Unfolded
Sai Sudharsan opened alongside Gill and gave the chase its foundation before departing at 57. He did what Sudharsan always does. Found gaps, rotated strike, kept the scoreboard honest. No fuss, no big moments, just runs on the board.
Jos Buttler came in at number three and fell at 95 for 2 in the 9th over, caught off Varun Chakravarthy. It was the seventh time Buttler had become Varun’s wicket in the Indian Premier League. That matchup clearly has Buttler’s number. He will know it. Varun will know it. The question is whether Buttler can find a way around it before it costs GT in a bigger game.
Still, at 95 for 2 in the 9th over, GT were completely in control of the chase. The required rate was never threatening.
Washington Sundar came in and played a measured hand, chipping in with 13 before being caught by Kartik Tyagi off Varun Chakravarthy at 141 for 3 in the 14th over. Three wickets down, still 40 needed off six overs. Gill is still at the crease. Nothing to worry about.
Glenn Phillips and Gill then pushed the chase into the final stretch. When Gill fell for 86 with the game virtually won, the remaining pair of Phillips and whoever came in knocked off the remaining runs with 2 balls to spare.
GT needed 38 runs from 31 balls at the 14-over mark with a required rate of just 7.35. KKR needed miracles. They did not get them.
The Numbers That Tell the Story
KKR innings:
Cameron Green — 79 off 55 balls, 7 fours, 4 sixes, top scorer, caught behind off Rashid Khan on the final delivery of the innings
Rovman Powell — 27 off 20 balls, 2 fours, 2 sixes, dismissed by Ashok Sharma’s brilliant slower ball
Tim Seifert — 19 off 14 balls, caught at cover off Rabada
Ajinkya Rahane — 0 off 1 ball, caught at mid-on off the very first delivery, bowled by Siraj
Angkrish Raghuvanshi — 8 off 4 balls, edged behind to Buttler off Rabada
Rinku Singh — 1 off 2 balls, faint edge behind off Rabada
Anukul Roy — 9 off 7 balls, edged behind off Prasidh Krishna
Fall of wickets: 5-1 (Rahane, 0.4), 21-2 (Raghuvanshi, 1.6), 32-3 (Seifert, 3.6), 87-4 (Powell, 10.6), 147-5 (Anukul Roy, 14.5), 148-6 (Rinku, 15.1), 165-7 (Ramandeep, 16.3), 166-8 (Narine, 17.3), 173-9 (Tyagi, 18.2), 180-10 (Green, 19.6)
GT innings:
Shubman Gill — 86, top scorer, caught in the deep by Green off KKR bowling
Sai Sudharsan — departed at 57 for 1
Jos Buttler — fell at 95 for 2, Varun Chakravarthy the wicket-taker
Washington Sundar — 13, caught by Tyagi off Varun at 141 for 3
Glenn Phillips — saw GT home alongside the finishers
Result: GT 181 for 5 in 19.4 overs. Won by 5 wickets.
What KKR’s Bowling Actually Looked Like
Narine, Arora, and Tyagi all looked toothless and GT scored 71 in the first six overs.
Seventy-one runs. In six overs. Chasing 181. The game was as good as gone before the powerplay had even finished.
Varun Chakravarthy did take two wickets, Buttler and Sundar, and showed some of his old magic in patches. But two wickets in a chase where the opposition scored at nearly 10 an over in the powerplay is not enough. Not remotely enough.
Vaibhav Arora and Kartik Tyagi, who have been KKR’s most reliable bowlers this season, could not do much with a ball that was sitting up nicely on a fast outfield and a GT batting lineup in full flow. When you concede 71 in the powerplay, whatever happens afterward is largely academic.
What This Result Actually Means
For Gujarat Titans, this is three wins in a row. Three. After starting the season with two consecutive defeats, they have completely turned their campaign around. Shubman Gill is now averaging 53.25 across nine matches this IPL season at a strike rate of 152. That is what a captain leading from the front looks like.
Prasidh Krishna now has 18 wickets across 10 matches at an average of 9.18 and a strike rate of 13.33. Those are numbers that belong on a different planet from everyone else in this tournament right now. He is the most dangerous bowler in IPL 2026, and it is not particularly close.
For Kolkata Knight Riders, this is five losses from six matches. One point from a washout. Zero wins. KKR sit at the very bottom of the points table with a net run rate of minus 1.383. The three-time champions are not just struggling. They are in a genuine crisis. The captaincy of Rahane is under scrutiny. The form of Narine and Chakravarthy is a deep concern. The big-money signings of Green and Allen have delivered one good innings and a lot of disappointment between them.
Something has to change in that dressing room. Soon. Or this season becomes irredeemable.
The Final Word
Gujarat Titans tonight were everything the Kolkata Knight Riders are not right now. Composed. Clinical. Led from the front. Gill batted beautifully, the bowlers in the first innings were excellent, and the chase was never allowed to become complicated.
KKR had Cameron Green’s 79 and not much else. Their captain was out on the first ball. Their spin attack, the pair that was supposed to win them matches, has been a ghost of itself all season.
Tonight, in their own backyard, in front of their own crowd, GT made it look easy. Three wins in a row. Sixth on the table, but moving. Momentum is building exactly when it needs to.
KKR goes home to figure out what went wrong. Again.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
