The Gujarat Titans (GT) have one of the most consistent top three – Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan, and Jos Buttler – in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026. They’ve got a bowling attack – Rashid Khan, Mohammed Siraj, Kagiso Rabada, Prasidh Krishna, and Jason Holder – that rivals the best T20 teams. Despite this, they lose the plot way too often. And it boils down to their planning and tactics.
Selection: Manav Suthar & Glenn Phillips
Let’s not get into their auction strategy, although that is the biggest problem. For now, we’ll stick to what they did wrong against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). We’ll begin from the beginning, which is selection. For reasons unknown, they picked Manav Suthar over Sai Kishore, who picked 19 wickets in 15 matches last season. Now, both have similar batting numbers, and one’s a proven bowler in the IPL. Yet, Gujarat picked the less accomplished one.
Then, we move to Glenn Phillips getting dropped. The Kiwi hasn’t done enough with the bat. But which GT middle-order batter has? He’s the best option they’ve got since Tom Banton got injured. It’s known that they don’t have the quality in that department, and yet they dropped him. Jason Holder deserves a spot, but if he comes into the team, it has to be for Kagiso Rabada, who takes the new ball as well.
What are Rahul Tewatia & Shahrukh Khan’s roles?
Gujarat was 160/2 in 15.3 overs. They ended up scoring just 45 in the next 27 balls. They were at least 10 or 15 runs short. Why was that? Because Washington Sundar was sent ahead of hitters like Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan, Jason Holder, and Rashid Khan. He ended up scoring 19 off 12 while Holder scored 23 off 10.
Sure, he’s a better batter than them, but not a hitter. It made no sense to promote him when the job was to hit the ball out of the park and not construct an innings. This also brings up the point: why are Tewatia and Shahrukh playing? If they can’t come into bat in the 16th over, what is their role? Are they just insurance batters, whose job is to play only when Buttler, Gill, and Sudharsan fail? Or are they just fillers, since you need 11 players on the team sheet to play a match?
Why didn’t Manav Suthar bowl until the 16th over?
Usage was an issue again. They played Suthar, a left-arm spinner, but he didn’t bowl an over until the score was 171/4 in 15 overs and RCB needed 35 off 30. The game was gone by then. The reason why he wasn’t introduced was matchups. Devdutt Padikkal, a left-handed batter, was batting from the 4th to the 13th over.
Before that, Jacob Bethell was there, and after him, Krunal Pandya was. The point is, surely Gujarat knew that RCB had 3 left-handed batters in the lineup. So, if despite knowing this, they chose to play Suthar above Ashok Sharma. But then, they decided not to bowl him. Why? Yes, he might’ve gone for runs, but if they fear that, why pick him?
