Hardik wins the battle against Gill with the ball, once again

The ball was dug in short. The pitch, slow and holding up, made it sit up rather than skid through. It was on middle and off. Shubman Gill did what instinct and training dictate — he went for the pull. He connected sweetly. But it went straight to the fielder in the deep.

That's now four dismissals in just 18 T20 deliveries from Hardik Pandya to Shubman Gill.

“It’s just the right length to Gill,” said Cheteshwar Pujara on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show. “Hardik tends to hit that back-of-a-length spot, and he’s been using the short ball quite effectively. Gill does have a bit of vulnerability there. It’s a scoring opportunity for him, but when it doesn’t come off, it often leads to a dismissal.”

Maybe Hardik knew that. These days, with data dissecting every nuance of a batter’s game, it’s likely he did. He stood there after the dismissal, visibly pleased. It looked like a plan that had worked — and Gill looked like he couldn’t believe he’d walked into it.

Interestingly, Hardik’s tactical success with the ball might have also served as an accidental blueprint for his own batters. The pitch in Ahmedabad — slow, black-soiled, and grip-friendly — made it clear: slow, slower, slowest was the winning formula. While both GT and MI would’ve studied that before the game, seeing it unfold in real time cemented the idea. GT posted 196, then restricted MI to 36 runs short, and at no point did it look like the chase was on.

“There were some shots that were easy to hit on that wicket, and some that were difficult,” Gill said in the post-match press conference. “We tried to make them hit the difficult ones — the same ones that we found tough while batting.”

Prasidh Krishna took full advantage, dialing down his usual pace and bowling into the pitch. The reward? 2 for 18 and the Player of the Match award.

Even Hardik, smiling in the post-match chat, hinted that his bowling might've helped lay the groundwork:

“Definitely, I was just thinking that,” he laughed. “Maybe I bowled way too many balls — they saw it was gripping.”

“On this wicket, those were the toughest balls to play. Some kept low, some bounced, some gripped. With that kind of variation, it’s not easy for batters.”

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