'You will get a tight slap from...' - Virender Sehwag makes bold remark on Shubman Gill after his slow knock against PBKS

Gujarat Titans registered a thrilling victory over Punjab Kings with just one ball remaining in the 18th match of the Indian Premier League on Thursday, April 13. Chasing an easy target of 154 runs, the GT batters batted slowly despite having the wicket in hand and as a result, the team needed four runs to win in the last two balls.

However, all-rounder Rahul Tewatia kept his cool and played a scoop shot which went for a four to take his team to the 3rd win of the season, but the slow innings of the defending champion's batters could also be the reason for the team's defeat. After the match, former cricketer Virender Sehwag criticized Shubman Gill for the same. 

"He scored 67 off 49 balls but when did he reach his fifty? He reached his fifty off maybe 41-42 balls so in 7-8 balls he has scored 17 more runs. The acceleration came there after he had reached his fifty. If even that had not happened then GT would have chased maybe 17 instead of 7 in the last over," Sehwag said on Cricbuzz.

"You can't think let me score a fifty and we will anyway win the match. This is cricket. The moment you think about your own performance (instead of the team), you will get a tight slap from cricket. You can't think like that. If he had shown the same intent and played at close to a strike rate of 200 when he was nearing fifty then he could have reached his milestone a lot earlier and save more deliveries for his team," Sehwag added.

It got slower with the old ball: Shubman Gill

Earlier, Punjab Kings had scored a mere 153/8 while batting first. In response, Gujarat Titans made a quick start but then as the pitch slowed down, Gujarat's innings also slowed down. Not only Gill scored at a slow pace, but the strike rates of Sai Sudarshan (19), Hardik Pandya (8) and David Miller (17) were also less than 100. As a result, the match went down to the wire and it took 19.5 overs for the Gujarat team to chase this target. Gill also talked about his knock after the match.

"It got slower with the old ball. So we needed to get off to a good start in the powerplay. We lost a bit of momentum when Hardik bhai got out. It wasn't a big score but it was important to rotate the strike and not have dot balls," he said.