Gill, the batsman, is defeated once more by Hardik, the bowler.

In short, the ball dug in. It doesn’t whiz through because of the pitch. Off and on middle. Shubman Playing the pull is what Gill has to do. He hits it quite well. But directly to the deep fielder. In T20 cricket, Hardik Pandya has now removed Gill in only 18 balls four times.

“To Gill, it’s the ideal length. Following the game, Cheteshwar Pujara stated on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show, “Hardik has been using that short ball quite effectively and tends to bowl that back-of-length [delivery].” When it comes to that length, Gill is a person who is rather vulnerable. Although it’s his chance to score, you are dismissed from that distance if he doesn’t get it right.

Perhaps Hardik was aware of it; nowadays, cricket players are largely knowledgeable about statistics, opponent strengths, and weaknesses. As he stood there, Hardik appeared really happy. He was aware that it would work, or at least that it could.

Gill appeared astonished that he had let himself get caught in the trap.

However, it’s possible that Hardik unintentionally set up a trap for his own hitters. Slow, slower, slowest was the strategy to use on a black-soil field where the ball was gripping the slow surface. Before their IPL 2025 match in Ahmedabad on Saturday night, neither the Gujarat Titans (GT) nor the Mumbai Indians (MI) would have been unaware of that, but it was helpful to see the evidence in Hardik’s strategy: GT stopped MI 36 short after putting up 196, and it never really looked like they wouldn’t.

“We were making sure that they were hitting challenging shots on that wicket because there were some shots that were easy to hit and some that were difficult [to hit].” which we believed to be challenging while we were batting,” Gill stated during the post-game press conference. For example, Prasidh Krishna took full use of the circumstances. He kept it slow and into the pitch, which was, in a sense, against his nature. and, thanks to his 2 for 18, won Player of the Match.

And Hardik acknowledged that he might have assisted Prasidh with the planning, but only half in joke. He said, “Definitely, I was just thinking that,” to the host broadcaster. They could see that it’s gripping, so perhaps I bowled way too many balls.

“I believe those were the hardest balls on this wicket because some of them were bouncing, some were gripping, and others were shooting down. As a batter, I believe it becomes challenging when there is this much fluctuating bounce or variation.