
Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill admitted he could have introduced Prasidh Krishna earlier with the ball after the Punjab Kings chased down the target to win by three wickets in their first IPL match on Tuesday.“I could have put Prasidh on earlier but we were in the game till the end, there will always be ifs and buts. But he came at the right time, took wickets and kept us in the game till the 17th and 18th over,” said Gill after the match.Punjab Kings were led by Cooper Connolly who scored 72 off 44 balls on debut to help his side chase 163 with five balls to spare. Prabhsimran Singh made 37 off 24 balls and the two added 76 runs for the second wicket.Earlier, Yuzvendra Chahal took 2/28 in four overs to dominate the middle stage, while Vijaykumar Vyshak took 3/34 as Gujarat Titans were held to 162/6.For Gujarat Titans, Gill scored 39 off 27 balls and Jos Buttler 38 off 33.Punjab Kings had an early setback when Kagiso Rabada dismissed Priyansh Arya, with debutant Ashok Sharma catching at mid-wicket.Connolly and Prabhsimran then put the innings back on track. Rashid Khan later dismissed Prabhsimran who was caught at long on.Shreyas Iyer hit two sixes off Ashok Kumar but was dismissed soon after when he edged a delivery from Prasidh Krishna to Washington Sundar at deep midwicket.Sundar also removed Nehal Wadhera while Krishna took the wickets of Shashank Singh and Marcus Stoinis in quick succession to bring Gujarat Titans back into the match.Krishna was brought into the attack in the 13th over with Punjab needing 53 runs from 48 balls and dismissed Iyer off his first delivery.Despite the wickets, Connolly stayed till the end, hitting five sixes and five fours to take Punjab Kings home.“I think we bowled pretty well, we didn’t get going in the last five or six overs (with the bat), it wasn’t a 200 wicket but if we had 175 it would have been different but we kept losing wickets and couldn’t get going in the last five,” added Gill.




