Back spasms led Gill to miss the entire second innings as the Royals romped to victory with more than 4 overs to spare.
Back spasms led to GT skipper Shubman Gill being subbed out for his side’s failed defense in the second innings.
Although he did not play in the second innings, he opened the batting with 84 off 50 balls as GT amassed 209 for 4 in Jaipur. Ishant Sharma, who was brought on as an Impact Player, took his place, and vice-captain Rashid Khan assumed the role of captain. Teenager Vaibhav Suryavanshi scored an incredible hundred off of 35 balls as GT suffered a crushing defeat.
With a short turnaround before their next game, Gill clarified after the game that GT’s medical staff had urged him not to play as a precaution.
“I just felt a little back spasm in my back, and we have a game a couple of days after from this,” Gill said before the post-match presentation. “The physio said [that we] didn’t want to take a chance.”
Gill hopes to be fit for their home game against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Friday.
GT have won six of their first nine matches and remain well-placed to reach the IPL 2025 playoffs. “It doesn’t matter for us what happened in the previous match, win or lose,” Gill said. “We take one game as it is and the next match is at Ahmedabad and we have had a good run there, so hopefully we’ll be able to continue that.
“They took the game away from us in the powerplay and credit to them for that… There were a couple of things that we could have done better, but it’s very easy to sit out and say those things. Some chances came early our way. We couldn’t grab those. But in hindsight, I think there are some areas that we need to work on as a group.”