Ahmedabad: A pace attack comprising Kagiso Rabada, Prasidh Krishna and Mohammed Siraj does bear an intimidating look but the troika will have its task cut out when ‘Boy Wonder’ Vaibhav Sooryavanshi faces them on a batting featherbed with Rajasthan Royals starting as favourites against Gujarat Titans in an IPL match here on Saturday.
The season two of “Vaibhav Kand” has started with the 15-year-old demolishing the Chennai Super Kings attack for a 15-ball-50 but that was in a chase of 127 and against a poor quality domestic attack.
On Saturday at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Sooryavanshi will once again try to meet fire with fire but there will be three international bowlers of repute in Rabada, Siraj and Prasidh, who would like to test the batting flagbearer for the ‘Gen Alpha’.
For Titans skipper Shubman Gill, one would expect that he would take a few more prudent decisions unlike the opener in Mullanpur where Siraj was given only two overs and Prasidh was introduced as late as in the 13th over.
On the batting front, the track at the Narendra Modi Stadium is expected to be a paradise where one can hit through the line. The trend in the tournament so far has been to chase and Rajasthan Royals with Nandre Burger and Jofra Archer, two tearaway quicks at its disposal would like to ask probing questions to Gill, Sai Sudharsan and
Jos Buttler first up.
The problem with GT line-up is their top three batters, who aren’t exactly scoring at 200 plus strike-rate. Both skipper Gill (39 off 27 balls) and Buttler (38 off 33 balls) didn’t look in their element against Punjab Kings at Mullanpur. Sudharsan (13 off 11 balls) is also trying to get into the groove post injury break.
It doesn’t help either that the top three on whom the Titans batting hinges, haven’t exactly been in great touch and are fighting their own little demons. Worse, their Indian middle order comprising Shahrukh Khan, Washington Sundar and Rahul Tewatia doesn’t inspire confidence of the highest order.