Depleted GT and MI face off in loser-goes-home-contest

Two depleted teams meet in the Eliminator of IPL 2025 knowing that defeat will end their respective campaigns. Gujarat Titans stayed atop the points table for a significant stretch of time but losing their last two league matches cost them as they fell to third, meaning they lost the chance to get two cracks at the IPL final. 

Mumbai Indians – perennial slow starters – won one of their first six games but found the desired momentum to make it to the playoffs and will need to pounce on every error that GT might make in the Eliminator. 

Both teams are missing key personnel for the playoffs. For GT, the overseas pair of Jos Buttler and Kagiso Rabada are unavailable, and MI are without Will Jacks and Ryan Rickleton, who have both been regulars in the 11. How the replacements fare in a knock-out match could influence the outcome of the Eliminator. 

GT’s formidable top three of Gill, Sai Sudarshan and Buttler have contributed about 73 per cent of the team’s runs this season. Standing out from the trio is left-handed Sudarshan, who in the Powerplay overs along averages 100 and has been striking at 149.3 in his first three deliveries faced. No batsman has hit more boundaries (98) than Sudarshan, and while he sits at eighth on the list of most sixes this season, he manages to hit a boundary every 4.5 balls. Sudarshan’s ability to hit boundaries during the first six overs is remarkable and he has the third-best dot-ball percentage (33.9) inside the Powerplay. 

A team so dependent on its top three is now missing Buttler and that massive void cannot be filled overnight. Kusal Mendis is primed to take over the wicketkeeping duties and bat at No 3 in his first game of IPL 2025, but there is more expected from the middle-order regulars who have not been at their best. Sherfane Rutherford and M Shahrukh Khan will have to have big days if Gill and Sudarshan don’t click. 

The other glaring sore point for GT is Rashid Khan, who is enduring his worst IPL season ever. He has nine wickets in 14 matches with an economy of 9.47, and Rashid has been tonked for 31 sixes. The way that Mohammed Siraj and R Sai Kishore have conceded runs in the past two defeats is another cause for concern. 

For MI, not having Rickleton – their second most successful batsman with 388 runs – is a loss that opens a chance for England’s Jonny Bairstow, who looks set to open the batting and keep wickets. With Jacks back in England, Suryakumar Yadav should bat at one-down and then one of the uncapped Bevon Jacobs or Sri Lanka’s white-ball captain Charith Asalanka could get into the middle order. 

A franchise that knows how to win titles has once again got its season back on track to make the playoffs, and it is that winning mindset which could separate MI from GT in Mullanpur. Hardik Pandya hasn’t been anywhere near top form, but he’s captained well and got the team from the bottom half of the points table to the final four. Suryakumar has just broken Sachin Tendulkar’s MI record for most runs in a season, Jasprit Bumrah is bowling like a champion and Mitchell Santner has been very tough to score off. 

Form will thus clash with experience in what looks like a cracking Eliminator. 

Gujarat Titans probable 12: 1 Shubman Gill (capt), 2 B Sai Sudarshan, 3 Kusal Mendis (wk), 4 Sherfane Rutherford, 5 M Shahrukh Khan, 6 Rahul Tewatia, 7 Rashid Khan, 8 Gerald Coetzee, 9 Arshan Khan, 10 R Sai Kishore, 11 Mohammed Siraj, 12 Prasidh Krishna

Mumbai Indians probable 12: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 3 Suryakumar Yadav, 4 Tilak Varma, 5 Charith Asalanka/Bevon Jacobs, 6 Hardik Pandya (capt), 7 Naman Dhir, 8 Mitchell Santner, 9 Deepak Chahar, 10 Trent Boult, 11 Jasprit Bumrah, 12 Karn Sharma