Gill's 104 powers Gujarat to a record 215 chase and into the IPL 2026 final
Gujarat Titans chased down 215 against Rajasthan Royals at New Chandigarh on Friday, the highest successful run chase in IPL playoff history, and the man who made it possible was their captain. Shubman Gill hit 104 off 53 balls, his fifth IPL hundred, to carry Gujarat into the IPL 2026 final by seven wickets. They meet defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
For most of the evening it looked like Rajasthan had done enough. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was the reason. The teenager made 96 off 47 balls, falling four short of a century for the second match running after his 97 in the Eliminator, and he was finally seen off by Kagiso Rabada. Daniel Ferreira then took the innings somewhere it had no right to go, clubbing four sixes in the last over to push Rajasthan up to 214 for 6. On most nights, on most grounds, that total wins a knockout game.
Gill and Sudharsan take the chase away early
Not this night. Gill and Sai Sudharsan walked out and treated 215 like a target worth half that. Gujarat were 69 without loss at the end of the powerplay, the pressure already draining out of the Rajasthan attack. Sudharsan got to fifty in 26 balls and fell for 58 off 32 in the oddest way, hit wicket again, his bat slipping out of his hands and into the stumps as he completed a shot, exactly as it had happened to him in the previous game.
Gill never wobbled. He reached his fifty in 30 balls and his hundred not long after, his fifth in the IPL, and only Jofra Archer could remove him, by which point the result was a formality. Rahul Tewatia and Jos Buttler knocked off the last few runs, Tewatia 17 not out and Buttler 9 not out, and Gujarat were home with eight balls to spare.
A record that stood for a year
The 215 Gujarat ran down beats the 204 Punjab Kings chased against Mumbai Indians in last season's Qualifier 2, the highest the IPL playoffs had seen until now. Rabada finished with two wickets, having also dismissed Dhruv Jurel cheaply inside the powerplay, but on a night when a captain decides to bat like this, bowling figures are footnotes.
Back to Ahmedabad, back against RCB
Gujarat reach their third IPL final, and they do it the hard way, through the second qualifier rather than the first. Waiting for them is a side that has already beaten them once this fortnight. RCB won Qualifier 1 by 92 runs, a hammering Gujarat will want to forget quickly. They get the chance on Sunday at the Narendra Modi Stadium, on their own ground, with a captain in the form of his life. If Gill bats in the final the way he batted here, the 92-run margin from the first meeting will count for very little.
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