After losing two back-to-back games, Gujarat Titans finally got back to winning ways on Tuesday as the team defeated Lucknow Super Giants by 62 runs. With the win, GT not only became the table-toppers once again but also became the first team to qualify for the IPL 2022 playoffs. Pandya, during the post-match presentation, hailed his team for sticking together through difficult times. 

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Speaking about their loss to Mumbai Indians, Pandya said, ” I always feel that if you lose a game like the one we lost in our last game, we win and lose games as a team. Yes, we did not do what we wanted to do. We messed it up, but we messed it up as a team. Everyone stood by each other, and we had a get-together post game and made sure the vibe was always there. We were still on second spot and that meant we were doing something right.”

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GT posted 144 for 4 against Lucknow with opener Shubman Gill top-scoring for them with a 63 not out off 49 balls. Chasing the target, KL Rahul-led LSG were all out for 82 in 13.5 overs. For GT, Rashid Khan took four wickets for 24 runs. With this, he became the third player to take 450 T20 wickets. 

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Hailing the team’s performance, Pandya said, “Really, really proud of the boys. It is a great effort to qualify before the 14th game in this league. To be honest, in the last game, we kind of thought that the game was over before it was over. We were always under pressure in all the other games that we won, and we felt that we’d finish off the last game with the kind of batting we had. That was learning we took. We just wanted to be ruthless today, and relax post game. I rate Sai Kishore quite high as a left-arm spinner. Because of the kind of fast bowlers we had, it wasn’t possible to play him and Jayant Yadav. Lucknow were a bit short in their lengths, and fuller lengths were working. Our bowlers did everything that we asked of them, and we ticked all boxes today.”