Shubman Gill's captaincy has come under heavy scrutiny after Gujarat Titans (GT) lost to Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Eliminator of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025.
Although Gujarat got the better of the five-time champions on both occasions in the league stage, the Paltans used their experience of playing on the big stage and crushed GT's hopes of a second IPL trophy.
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Mumbai chose to bat first after winning the toss and posted a mammoth target of 229 for the Titans to chase if they wanted to seal a place in the Qualifier 2 against Punjab Kings (PBKS).
Gujarat were poor on the field, as misfields and dropped catches had become the norm. The dangerous Rohit Sharma was dropped twice - on 3 and 12 - by Gerald Coetzee and Kusal Mendis, respectively. Sharma went on to score 81 in 50 deliveries, which added to the woes of GT.
The skipper himself failed to step up on the big stage, as he returned to the dugout for just one run as he was adjudged leg-before-wicket against Trent Boult in the very first over of the innings.
Gujarat fell short by 20 runs, despite valiant attempts from Sai Sudharsan and Washington Sundar. Many of Gill's decisions in the last match have raised eyebrows in the Indian cricketing circle, one of which has been pointed out by Robin Uthappa.
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What did Uthappa say?
Former Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) star Robin Uthappa wasn't too pleased with Shubman Gill's decision to bring Prasidh Krishna into the attack early on in the powerplay. He felt that Gujarat's tactics were more reactive than proactive.
Speaking to JioHotstar, Uthappa said, "GT’s strategy was more reactive than proactive. Using Prasidh in the powerplay – despite his success in middle overs – was a misstep. His first over was expensive, and they failed to course-correct."
He further added that dropping too many catches in a high-voltage match isn't the way to go to win championships.
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"The 26-run and 22-run overs proved costly. On top of that, their fielding let them down. You can't drop that many catches and expect to win a championship."
Krishna is the leading wicket-taker in the 18th edition now, with 25 wickets in 15 matches. However, most of his wickets have come in the middle overs or at the death. Surprisingly, the pacer was called in to bowl in the powerplay, where he got hit for 26 and 22 runs, respectively, in his spell of two overs.
Although he picked up two wickets, one being the dangerous Sharma, the damage was already done by then. Krishna ended his spell at 2/53 in his last match of the IPL 2025, something he will not want to keep fond memories of.
Many feel that Gill missed a trick here, which massively impacted their chances going forward into the match.