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Ahmedabad, 31 May. The Gujarat Titans (GT) batsmen, who showed their batting prowess against Rajasthan Royals (RR) just two days ago, proved to be a flop on the title front in front of the home supporters here on Sunday night. The result was also visible, when after the lethal performance of the bowlers, King Kohli (75 not out, 42 balls, three sixes, nine fours) showed his magic and the defending champion Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) succeeded in defending the title with an easy five-wicket victory with 12 balls remaining.

Hosts could reach 155 runs with Washington Sundar’s fighting fifty

For the fourth time in five years, in the title match played at the grand Narendra Modi Stadium, the Titans team, forced to bat first, collapsed to 155 runs for eight wickets in front of Rasikh Salam (3-27), Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2-29) and Josh Hazlewood (2-37). The noteworthy fact was that after the collapse of the top batting line including the century-winning captain Shubman Gill of the last match, the team was able to reach beyond 150 with the help of Washington Sundar’s fighting fifty (50 not out, 37 balls, five fours) at a crucial time.

Virat made victory easy for the guests with his unbeaten half-century

In front of a weak target, the opening pair of Virat Kohli and Venkatesh Iyer (32 runs, 16 balls, two sixes, four fours) gave a solid start to RCB with a quick partnership of 62 runs in 27 balls. However, after that the Gujarat bowlers made a momentary attempt to create pressure.

But ‘Player of the Match’ Kohli did not stop and in the presence of other batsmen, he sealed the title victory for the guests by hitting a four and a six respectively on the last two balls of the 18th over against Arshad Khan, who scored 161 runs for five wickets.

RCB won its first title here last year

With this, RCB was successful in defending the title which it had won for the first time by defeating Punjab Kings at the same ground last year. Before that, the Bengaluru team had to finish runner-up in 2009, 2011 and 2016. At the same time, playing the final on their own home ground for the third time in IPL history, Titans had to be content with finishing runner-up for the second time. In its debut year of 2022, GT earned the title of champion by defeating Rajasthan, but the next year it lost to Chennai Super Kings in the final.

Gujarat had bowled out Bengaluru for 155 runs in the last meeting on the same ground.

Interestingly, GT had won by four wickets in 25 balls after restricting RCB to 155 runs on the same ground on April 30. And today RCB settled the score in the same style and earned an easy victory after stopping GT’s innings on the same score.

Like Qualifier 1, Gill and Company could not respond again.

By the way, this was the fourth meeting of the two teams this season, in which RCB was ahead 3-1. In the first encounter held on April 24 at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, both the teams had crossed the 200 mark, but there too, RCB won by five wickets due to a strong half-century by ‘Player of the Match’ Kohli.

score card

Both the teams faced each other for the third time during the Qualifier 1 in Dharamshala, where after captain Rajat Patidar’s explosive 93 runs scored a huge score of 254, Bengaluru bowled out Gujarat for 162 runs and secured a ticket to the final for the fifth time with a big win of 94 runs. Today again the same story was repeated, when after restricting GT to a low score, RCB easily achieved the target and gave a wonderful birthday gift to their captain Patidar, who will celebrate his 33rd birthday on Monday (June 1).