Captain Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan laid the platform in Jaipur and Rashid Khan followed it up with a spell that changed the game in favour of Gujarat Titans as they hammered Rajasthan Royals by 77 runs on Saturday.

The win, the Titans’ fourth on the bounce, takes them to second position in the standings, behind table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad only on run rate. The Royals, who missed regular captain Riyan Parag, out with a hamstring pull, slipped to fifth.

Earlier, openers Gill (84 off 44 balls) and Sudharsan (55 off 36 balls) forged a solid 118-run stand inside 11 overs, which was key to the Titans finishing at a formidable 229/4, after they were put in at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.

Washington Sundar (37 not out off 20 balls) and Rahul Tewatia (14 not out off 4
balls) then ensured the Titans had a proper finish to their innings.

They were also fortunate, as Gill had a reprieve on 54, dropped by Shimron Hetmyer at deep-midwicket. Not just failing to pouch the ball, Hetmyer even parried the ball over for a six, with Ravindra Jadeja being the unlucky bowler.

Rashid’s variety

Mohammed Siraj negated Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s impact after the teenager got going in the run chase with three boundaries and as many sixes, and Kagiso Rabada dismissed the Royals’ stand-in skipper Yashasvi Jaiswal and Hetmyer. But still, Dhruv Jurel and Jadeja took the team to 78/3 at the end of Powerplay with the in-form Donovan Ferreira still to come.

But Rashid’s bowling practically sealed the game for the Titans. The ace Afghanistan spinner bowled the googly to first clean up Jurel, before unleashing the conventional leg-spin to knock Ferreira in the same eighth over.

In his next spell, Rashid relied on leg-spin again to rattle the stumps of Shubham Dubey and then bowled one that didn’t turn much to trap Jadeja LBW. There was some help off the pitch for the spinners, and Man of the Match Rashid (4/33), who bowled 12 dot balls as well, made superb use of it.

All-rounder Jason Holder cleaned up the Royals’ tail.