Former Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh revealed that the early wicket of Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill was a massive moment in the IPL final. RCB were able to restrict GT to 155 and then registered a five-wicket win to bag their second consecutive title.
Gill, who had been in red-hot form, was dismissed after scoring 10 runs off eight deliveries by Josh Hazlewood. The GT skipper played a half-hearted short-arm jab and thus top-edged the ball to his opposite number, Rajat Patidar.
“It was a massive wicket. The best thing that happened for RCB in this game was this because him getting out meant half the game was in their bag. He was the main batter who was consistently scoring runs, and he could have hit any bowler. He had won his team the game single-handedly with the previous inning he played,” Harbhajan Singh said on JioHotstar.
The former MI and CSK spinner added that Sai Sudharsan’s dismissal also added salt to GT’s wounds.
“He would think that he could have probably delayed that shot. While batting first, at times, it’s on your mind how many runs are needed, and that the team against them is RCB, who have a lot of batting. I feel he was slightly hasty. It was a massive moment for RCB, but this was the worst moment for GT today, and then Sai Sudharsan’s wicket falling in the first six overs,” Harbhajan observed.
On the other hand, former Indian skipper Sunil Gavaskar highlighted that Gill wanted to bat in a similar fashion against RCB as he did against RR in the second qualifier, but the ploy backfired.
“The way Shubman batted in the last match, they had hit Jofra Archer for 19 runs in the first over, there too he was going down the pitch and hitting. I feel he wanted to play like that against Hazlewood as well, but when Hazlewood uses his wrist, the ball bounces a little more,” he said.
Gavaskar said Gill could not rightly judge the length of the ball against Josh Hazlewood and fell prey to his first mistake.
“Many times, the batters feel the length is short, but it’s short of good length, from where it’s not easy to play the pull shot. He played the same shot very well against Jofra Archer two days ago. It happens at times. He got out to his first mistake. Sometimes, you are lucky, catches are dropped, or the ball falls as the fielders aren’t close,” Gavaskar observed.
Gill ended the IPL 2026 as the second-highest run-getter after Vaibhav Suryavanshi, scoring 732 runs in 17 matches at an average of 45.75 and a strike rate of 163.02.
