The captain of the Gujarat Titans, Hardik Pandya, encouraged his batsmen to play more aggressively in the middle overs of the match in the upcoming games of the Indian Premier League season 2023. Defending champions Gujarat Titans defeated Punjab Kings and registered a six-wicket victory after Mohit Sharma's excellent return to the IPL and opener Shubman Gill's amazing performance with the bat as he scored 67 runs out of 49 balls. However, at the end of the game, it got quite intense as GT chased down their target of 154 runs with only one ball to spare, something which Captain Hardik Pandya did not appreciate at all.
Hardik said at the post-match presentation that, "To be very honest, I would not appreciate the game going this close from the situation we were in. There was definitely a lot for us to learn from this game. That's the beauty of sports; it's never over till it's over." He further said that, "So we will go back to the drawing board. I think we can take a couple more risks in the middle innings. We should take risks and play shots in the middle innings; we need to make sure the game doesn't go so deep. The wicket was good, but because of the hardness of the soil and wicket, the ball was drying up. It was a belter when the new ball was playing."
Hardik was quite impressed with the medium pacer Mohit Sharma for his performance with the ball, as this was his first game after 2020.