Kolkata: Shubman Gill hit only two sixes yet he scored 76 off 38 balls. Three wickets were lost in the last over but Gujarat Titans still ended with 224/6. Only one side could have chased it down, but Sunrisers Hyderabad are now a shade of their not-so-distant past, and so the 38-run defeat was on expected lines.

#Travishek were poised to give Sunrisers the start they would have needed but Rashid Khan sprinted 32m from deep square leg, dived full length and pulled off a sensational catch to send back Travis Head in the fifth over.

Abhishek Sharma still tried, getting 74 off 41 balls. Using Gerald Coetzee’s pace, he picked up a six over long leg before drilling Rashid for a four and a six off consecutive balls. The strike rate had dropped below 200 after a long time but as long as Abhishek was farming the strike with Heinrich Klaasen, Sunrisers’ hopes stayed afloat. Till Ishant Sharma bowled a length delivery that Abhishek couldn’t quite pull properly and Mohammad Siraj did the rest. Klaasen departed next over to a quiet dismissal after failing to connect a lap shot. Next over Siraj almost took a hattrick and that was that for Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Expecting the top order to save the blushes was probably expecting too much after the way Sunrisers had conceded ground while Titans were batting. The bowling plans were dodgy, the fielding ramshackle and the overall body language questionable. And once Jos Buttler was dropped by Cummins, the shoulders dropped even further.

That said, the monotony with Titans’ batting is tiring in the most exhilarating way by now. Another massive opening partnership, followed by another crucial innings from Buttler, everything happened like clockwork and at the right juncture of the innings. Six out of nine matches now Mohammad Shami hasn’t completed his quota of three overs, an inevitability one could predict by his second over. Second ball to Gill, Shami strayed onto his pads, prompting the Titans captain to just flick it over backward square leg for a six. Sai Sudharsan then blasted five fours off him, through midwicket, point, fine-leg, third man and finally fine of the square leg fielder.

The Ahmedabad pitch wasn’t quick but pace on the ball wasn’t lacking in any way given Sunrisers went with four pacers. Jaydev Unadkat operated with better lengths and pulled back the run rate but nothing more. Pat Cummins conceded 10 runs per over, Harshal Patel at 13.66. Bulk of the damage was already inflicted in the Powerplay with Titans racing to 82, their highest ever total. Gill was front and centre of this onslaught, carting Cummins for consecutive boundaries in his first over before shuffling across the stumps and flaying him over deep midwicket for a rollicking six.

Also dealing in boundaries, Sudharsan then targeted Patel as Sunrisers were quickly made to look bereft of ideas. The acceleration was organic. “We are not thinking about not losing wickets, we are reacting to our best and trying to keep the strike rate up rather than thinking about what can happen if we get out,” said Sudharsan during the innings break. To walk the talk like that in a big ground like Ahmedabad isn’t easy. At home however, there was no way Titans would have let the initial momentum slip.

Once again looking set for a hundred, Gill was out run-out on 76. But Buttler chimed in with a timely fifty, helping Titans to 162/2 after 15 overs. Cummins conceded 10 runs in the next over but Buttler swung his arms against Zeeshan Ansari, lifting the spinner over long-on for a six before reverse lapping a cheeky boundary. To Patel then, Buttler clobbered a four through mid-off before hitting him over long-on for a massive six. Two hundred up in the 18th over, Titans had more or less got what they would have wanted.