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On Friday, the Gujarat Titans will be bracing for a similar whirlwind when they take the field against RR in the Qualifier 2 in a second shot at a final spot. Shubman Gill’s bowling attack is already smarting from the massive 254-run hammering they copped from Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the first Playoffs match in Dharamsala. And the Sooryavanshi hurricane wouldn’t be an entirely new experience for the Gujarat outfit.

Last year, Sooryavanshi announced himself to the world against the same attack, smashing a record-breaking 35-ball century, which now stands as the fastest ton by an Indian in IPL history. In two outings this year, though, GT have had relatively better results against him, dismissing him in the thirties.

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In the first outing in Ahmedabad, stand-in captain Rashid Khan had the better of Sooryavanshi with a skiddy delivery that rushed him – a rare sequence – forcing him to pull down to the deep square-leg fielder. It takes special deliveries to stop him early in his tricks and Mohammed Siraj had one hurtling at him in Jaipur earlier this month.

Defending a 229-run total, GT nipped Sooryavanshi with the inch-perfect bouncer from Siraj. The ball had developed brute of a bounce from the strip and rose just up above Sooryavanshi’s flattened blade that attempted the pull. It is a magic delivery that can rarely be aced in succession by the same bowler. Siraj induced the top-edge that was gobbled up by the deep third man fielder.

It is not a ploy that one expect even pacers of the pedigree of Siraj and Kagiso Rabada to nail from ball one. There are other options that can be employed early.

While Cummins nailed a perfect yorker first up to Sooryavanshi two nights ago, the SRH bowlers could never really hit the blockhole consistently thereafter. The yorker has contained the left-hander to a certain extent, even accounting for his dismissal by Kyle Jamieson in a match aganst Delhi Capitals in Jaipur. There have only been four successive yorkers bowled against Sooryavanshi this season, costing just one run for a dismissal.

The fine region between backward and cover-point is one region that the bowlers can test first up against Sooryavanshi. In simpler terms, width with the ball angled away, requiring the teenager to exert more power to clear the ropes. In their final league stage match against the Mumbai Indians, Sooryavanshi endured a rare failure against an interesting tactic. Seamer Deepak Chahar shaped the ball away away from Sooryavanshi’s natural arc and clipped the thick edge down to backward point.

An inch-perfect yorker, a rip-snorting bouncer, a clever away-shaping delivery on the perfect spot — the Gujarat bowlers will have their task cut out in trying to silence Sooryavanshi in Mullanpur tonight.

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