Former India player turned commentator Mohammad Kaif has said that the Gujarat Titans’ (GT) death-bowling is the issue ahead of IPL 2026. He also said that pace bowler Mohammed Siraj is more proficient with the new ball, and he also got hit at the death in the team’s last few matches in IPL 2025 as well.
However, the Gujarat Titans retained 20 players heading into the IPL 2026 auction. They bought four pace-bowling options in Ashok Sharma, Jason Holder, Prithviraj Yarra and Luke Wood at the mini auction of IPL last year.
During a discussion on Star Sports, Kaif said, “Siraj is a new-ball bowler. Prasidh Krishna bowls in the middle. His strength is hit-the-deck bowling. The Ahmedabad ground is big. The square boundaries are big. He bowls hard lengths in the middle. So I can understand what his role is.”
“Prasidh Krishna has shown improvement in his slower balls as well. The ball dips and he picks up wickets, but they don’t have death bowling. Kagiso Rabada is getting hit. Siraj also got hit. I am talking about the final three or four matches last year. Prasidh Krishna got hit,” he further added.
“This team has two backups for every player” – Mohammad Kaif
Meanwhile, Mohammad Kaif also added that although the Gujarat Titans assemble a strong squad every year, they couldn’t finish in the top two in IPL 2025 despite winning 9 of their first 12 matches as well.
“This team has two backups for every player. They always win the auction. Compared to other teams, their auction planning is fantastic. However, last year, they had won nine of the first 12 matches, and were sitting on top, but they couldn’t come in the top two after that. They had to play the Eliminator. They lost their last three matches consecutively,” he said.
“Teams were scoring 225-odd against them. Their bowling got exposed. Bowling was their strength at the start, but when the main tournament came, when they had to win one match to qualify for the top two, they lost all three. So the bowling also got exposed under pressure. So, along with batting, they will have to pay attention to bowling as well this time,” Mohammad Kaif concluded.
Get the latest cricket news here, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more such updates.
