By Prakash Nair 
Ahmedabad, April 30: Shubman Gill won the toss and did not think twice.
GT Bowl first. Simple as that.
And look, when you are standing in the middle of the Narendra Modi Stadium on a warm Ahmedabad evening with dew already threatening to roll in later, there is really only one sensible call. Gujarat Titans are bowling first against Royal Challengers Bengaluru tonight, and if you had asked any cricket person before the toss what they expected, most of them would have told you exactly this.
The logic is not complicated. This pitch plays true. Scores go big here. And once the dew sets in during the second half, the ball gets soft, the grip disappears, slower balls stop working, and suddenly, bowling becomes a bit of a nightmare. Ask any captain who has tried to defend a total at this ground in the back half of an IPL evening. The ground almost always tilts toward the chasing side as the night goes on.
So GT bat second. That is the plan.
Whether the plan works is an entirely different conversation.
The Bowling Has to Show Up
Here is the thing. Winning the toss and choosing to bowl is only a good decision if your bowlers actually do something with it. And GT’s bowling attack has been inconsistent enough this season that tonight cannot be taken for granted.
Kagiso Rabada has been in better rhythm lately, which is genuinely encouraging. He hits the deck hard, he gets bounce, and on a surface with pace in it he can be a real handful in those first four overs before the batting side settles. If he can get Virat Kohli or Devdutt Padikkal early before either of them finds their timing, the whole complexion of the evening changes.
Mohammed Siraj alongside him gives GT a decent new-ball partnership. Two genuine pace options in the powerplay is not nothing.
But the elephant in the room is still Rashid Khan. Always comes back to him. He has been off genuinely, visibly off for a few weeks now, and tonight he faces the same RCB batting lineup that took him apart at Chinnaswamy less than seven days ago. Forty nine runs in four overs. That number has not gone away. RCB’s batters remember exactly what worked against him, and you can be absolutely certain that Rajat Patidar and his team have spoken about it.
Rashid is still the most important bowler on this GT side. That has not changed. But he needs to find something tonight a different angle, a different pace, something, because if RCB’s top order gets after him the way they did last week, GT are going to be chasing something very large indeed.
What RCB Will Try to Do
Pretty straightforward, honestly. Get Kohli and whoever opens with him through the powerplay without losing a wicket, let the run rate build naturally, and then unleash Tim David and the middle order in the back ten.
Virat Kohli has 351 runs this season at an average of 58.50. He is not in form. He is in that other place where he is just seeing the ball early, moving his feet instinctively, and making everything look quieter and easier than it actually is. Getting him out cheaply tonight would be the single biggest thing GT’s bowlers could do for their team.
Devdutt Padikkal alongside him has been solid all season. Rajat Patidar in the middle order has a strike rate above 210 at his best. And if things get tight in the final overs, Tim David is one of the cleanest hitters in world T20 cricket right now.
A score of somewhere between 190 and 205 is what RCB will be targeting. On this pitch, on this ground, with this batting lineup, that is realistic. Anything above 200 gives their bowlers a very comfortable cushion to defend.
For GT, the Job Is Clear
Keep RCB under 180. Preferably under 175.
Take wickets in the powerplay before the partnership builds. Do not let Rashid go for big runs in the middle overs. Hold something back for death. And then come out with the bat when the dew has settled and chase it down.
Easy to say. Genuinely hard to execute against this RCB side.
Sai Sudharsan and Shubman Gill will open or bat near the top when GT come in, and both of them are in reasonable touch. Jos Buttler, lower down, gives them a finisher who can take any game away from an opposition in four overs if he gets going.
But all of that is secondary right now. First, GT needs to bowl well. They need to make RCB work. They need to give themselves something reasonable to chase.
The toss has been won. The hard part starts right now.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
