Dinesh Karthik. (Photo Source: Jio Cinema)
At the final match of the round-robin stage of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) battled Gujarat Titans (GT) at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. In the intriguing contest, Gujarat handed a six-wicket defeat to the hosts and ended their journey in this year’s competition. With RCB’s loss, Mumbai Indians (MI) are now through to the playoffs to face Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the Eliminator on May 24, 2023, at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium.
Virat Kohli, who smashed a terrific match-winning 100 against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the previous game, stepped up in the crucial match and scored another ton to help Challengers post a challenging total of 197/5 on the board. On one side, Kohli muscled GT’s bowling unit with his confidence, while on the other side, wicketkeeper batter Dinesh Karthik racked up another failure in this competition.
After Michael Bracewell’s wicket on the last delivery of the 14th over, Karthik arrived at the crease. With the collapse of the middle order, the RCB stalwart had a responsibility to support Kohli. However, in the colossal contest, the veteran again disappointed his team’s supporters by falling to a duck on his first delivery. Notably, Karthik registered his 17th duck, which is the most by any batter in the history of IPL.
With this, Dinesh Karthik surpassed the MI skipper, Rohit Sharma, on the list of scoring the most ducks in the cash-rich league. Earlier, in this year’s competition, Rohit became the owner of this unwanted record against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the 49th match of IPL 2023 at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium.
Gill held his nerves and displays his intrepid side
After Kohli’s sensational innings, Gujarat needed someone to take responsibility to pocket the game. Shubman Gill, who looked stunning throughout this tournament, walked out with his opening partner Wriddhiman Saha and gave an explosive start to his side. After Saha’s fall, he stitched a 123-run partnership with Vijay Shankar to help his team in a commanding position.
With David Miller’s wicket on the fourth delivery of the 18th over, Titans were required to score 27 off 14 and this time, Gill showed nerves of steel and played some exquisite strokes to seal the match in his team’s favour by six wickets and five balls to spare. In GT’s tenth IPL 2023 win, Gill scored an unprecedented 104-run innings off 52 deliveries and became the Player of the Match.