The first fourteen editions of the Indian Premier League (IPL) followed the same format of a double round robin among 8 regional franchises followed by the knockouts (later replaced by IPL playoffs). However, there’s a change coming for IPL 2022 as for the first time, there’s going to be ten participating teams in a single edition of this leading T20 tournament.
The two new teams include Gujarat and Lucknow and today, we’re going to talk about the squad and possible team composition of Gujarat Titans ahead of IPL 2022 which is their debut IPL season. New to this tournament, it’s going to be tough for the team to do well immediately, especially since they’re playing with a leader who hasn’t captained before in the IPL or any other major tournaments.
Gujarat Titans before IPL 2022 Auction
The captain we’re mentioning above is Hardik Pandya who was one of their three players to be purchased in the IPL 2022 Player Draft, as the retention rule doesn’t apply to the new franchises. He doesn’t have leadership experience and to add to that, they didn’t build the best squad at the IPL 2022 Auction either. However, they got leading T20 spinner Rashid Khan as part of the player draft and he’s crucial.
The third player from the draft was former KKR opening batsman Shubman Gill who has talent and hasn’t been at his best in the last couple of editions of the tournament, but has still managed 400+ runs in each of those editions. He’ll be leading wat we think will be a very thin batting order going into IPL 2022, as they seem to have purchased more bowlers than batsmen at the IPL 2022 mega auction.
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The only opening option they have is England’s Jason Roy who has been in great form and even scored a century in the PSL 2022 tournament recently. But unlike other teams, they have no other genuine opening batsmen which raises many questions about their squad depth. The only other potentials are Matthew Wade (never played in the IPL) and the 37-year old Wriddhiman Saha (131 runs in 9 games in IPL 2021).
The all-rounder pool also seems to be lacking as apart from Hardik, they only have Vijay Shankar and Rahul Tewatia. Shankar has been doing well in the domestic circuit but has never done well in this tournament, with only 3 fifties with the bat and 9 wickets with the ball in 47 career IPL games. Similarly, Tewatia has been a hit-or-miss player in the IPL, and we think he is very overpaid for IPL 2022.
IPL 2022 – Gujarat Titans full squad
Hardik Pandya, Rashid Khan, Shubman Gill, Jason Roy, Wriddhiman Saha, Abhinav Manohar Sadarangani, Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tewatia, Dominic Drakes, Mohammed Shami, Lockie Ferguson, Yash Dayal, Jayant Yadav, R Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad, Alzarri Joseph, Pradeep Sangwan, David Miller, Matthew Wade, Gurkeerat Singh, B Sai Sudharshan.
The fast bowling unit comprises of Alzarri Joseph, Pradeep Sangwan, Dominic Drakes, Mohammed Shami, and Lockie Ferguson and here’s where we think they’ll do well. And we’re asking you to watch out for Abhinav Manohar Sadarangani as well, who is a strong, muscular batsman scoring plenty of runs for Karnataka. For squad news from IPL 2022 and other updates too, stay tuned to ReadScoops.com…
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