Qualifier 2 between Rajasthan Royals and Gujarat Titans kicked off with a moment that threatened to steal the spotlight before a ball was even bowled. The match referee was unable to hear the toss call the first time, leading to a repeat of the procedure. With the surface expected to play slower as the night went on, both captains had their preference to bat first.
Quick facts from the toss
- Rajasthan Royals won the toss and chose to bat against Gujarat Titans.
- Match referee Prakash Bhatt did not hear the first toss call and asked for a redo.
- Rajasthan captain Riyan Parag called “heads” on both occasions.
- Shubman Gill, who lost the toss, was not pleased because both teams wanted first use of the pitch.
Rajasthan’s Riyan Parag called for “heads” twice, but on the initial attempt the match referee missed the signal. He even tried to keep the cameras from clearly capturing the outcome of that first coin toss. The situation became clearer when Gill said he also wanted to bat first and added that, unfortunately, the referee had not heard the toss call.
Once Gill’s comment made it evident that the first spin had gone the way of tails, Parag moved forward without hesitation with the decision to bat. The Royals were coming off the Eliminator, where they had also opted to bat first on a similar type of used track against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Parag felt their bowling unit would be able to apply pressure later in the innings, once the pitch continued to slow down.
Rajasthan did not tinker with the lineup that delivered them that win in the previous game. Gujarat, however, made a targeted adjustment to match the conditions and their plan on the surface.
Gujarat Titans brought in the tall left-arm spinner R Sai Kishore, replacing the left-arm quick Kulwant Khejroliya. Khejroliya’s most recent appearance had been his first T20 outing in more than a year, making this a notable change in the Titans’ XI for Qualifier 2.
Rajasthan Royals XI
1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 3 Dhruv Jurel (wk), 4 Riyan Parag (capt), 5 Donovan Ferreira, 6 Dasun Shanaka, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Nandre Burger, 10 Brijesh Sharma, 11 Yash Raj Punja.
RR bench: Shubham Dubey, Sushant Mishra, Aman Perala, Ravi Bishnoi, Tushar Deshpande.
Gujarat Titans XI
1 Shubman Gill (capt), 2 B Sai Sudharsan, 3 Jos Buttler (wk), 4 Jason Holder, 5 Washington Sundar, 6 Nishant Sindhu, 7 Rashid Khan, 8 R Sai Kishore, 9 Kagiso Rabada, 10 Prasidh Krishna, 11 Mohammed Siraj.
GT bench: Rahul Tewatia, Glenn Phillips, Anuj Rawat, Kumar Kushagra, Arshad Khan.
