Gujarat Titans bossed the Indian Premier League points table for the entire season, but lost their way in the last two matches of the league stage to slip to third place. They will face Mumbai Indians in eliminator now and will miss Jos Buttler in this knockout clash. Who will replace him?
Gujarat Titans and Mumbai Indians will lock horns in the Eliminator of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Friday (May 30) at Mullanpur. While the Titans finished in third place in the points table after 70 league stage matches, five-time champions MI ended fourth. However, both teams are struggling with the availability of their overseas players. The Titans will miss their number three batter Jos Buttler in the playoffs, and it will be a huge miss for them.
Buttler scored 538 runs in 13 matches at an average of 60 and a strike rate of 163.03 with five half-centuries. Buttler had to leave at the end of the league phase of IPL as he was named in England’s ODI squad for the three-match series against the West Indies. Sai Sudharsan and Shubman Gill, apart from Buttler, scored truckloads of runs for the Titans through the season. Buttler’s absence is certainly going to hurt the IPL 2022 champions.
Meanwhile, the franchise has replaced Buttler with Kusal Mendis in their playing XI, who has never played the IPL. However, he has played 172 T20 matches, amassing 4718 runs at a strike rate of 137.43 with two centuries and 32 fifties to his name. He was recently in action in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) for Quetta Gladiators and scored 143 runs in five innings at an average of 35.75 and a strike rate of 168.23.
It is unlikely that the Gujarat Titans will make any other change in their playing XI. They will miss Kagiso Rabada, but Gerald Coetzee has already fared decently.
GT Playing XI for Eliminator clash vs MI: Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill, Kusal Mendis, Sherfane Rutherford, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Gerald Coetzee, Arshad Khan, R Sai Kishore, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna