Gujarat Titans (GT) entered IPL 2026 carrying the pressure of two consecutive near-misses, and the pressure around Shubman Gill's side was building fast. They had suffered a narrow 6-run loss to the Rajasthan Royals on April 5, with their middle order drawing criticism for repeatedly failing to convert strong starts into commanding totals.
Against Delhi on Wednesday, GT posted 210 for 4 in their 20 overs, with Jos Buttler cracking 52 off 26, Gill anchoring with 70 off 45, and Washington Sundar producing a stunning maiden IPL fifty with 55 off 32 balls. Delhi's chase was ferocious from the first over, with Pathum Nissanka and KL Rahul dismantling GT's pace attack and plundering 23 runs off Ashok Sharma in the sixth over alone.
Rashid Khan tilted the match back in GT's favour with three wickets for just 17, but KL Rahul kept Delhi alive with a brilliant 92 off 52. The final over arrived with DC needing 13 runs, and Prasidh Krishna was tasked with delivering it.
The drama of those final six balls will be talked about for a long time. Needing two runs off the second-to-last ball, Miller turned down a single in a move that ultimately cost Delhi the game, and David Miller then failed to find even a single run off the final delivery as GT escaped with a one-run win. After the game, Gill spoke with the visible relief of a captain who had seen his team scrape through by the barest of gaps. "
Asked specifically about Miller's choice to stay put off the fifth ball, Gill was blunt. "We have a chance to win," was what went through his mind then, he said, noting that the game stayed alive only because of that decision. On the chat he had with Prasidh before the last ball, Gill said they went back and forth between a yorker and a slower ball before choosing the change-up, thinking that the surface made a well-placed slower delivery much tougher to put away for a boundary. Prasidh finished with two wickets for 52, and that final slower ball ended up being the decider. For GT, these were their first points of IPL 2026, earned in the most frantic way possible.
"Very pleased to get over the line in this one. (on what he felt when Miller didn't take the run off the 5th ball?) We have a chance to win. (chat before the last ball with Prasidh) No, we were just discussing whether to go for the yorker or to go for the slower one. But, you know, we decided that giving the wicket how it's playing, the slower one, if you bowl a good slower one, it'll be difficult to hit that for a boundary," said Gill after GT's win.
