Gujarat Titans captain H ardik Pandya wished to see his counterpart MS Dhoni once again after losing Qualifier 1. The IPL 2023 playoffs got off to a brilliant start with an incredible match between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings as the four-time champions registered a thrilling win to enter their 10th IPL final in history. After putting up 172 runs in the first innings, MS Dhoni and his bowlers put on a stunning bowling display.
The fast bowlers started off strongly with Deepak Chahar back at his best, picking up wickets at the top. Then came in the spinners, who truly spun a web around the GT middle order and broke through the batting lineup. After some of Rashid Khan's big hits, Chennai scrapped through to register a 15-run win.
Reacting to this loss, Hardik Pandya had some praiseful words for Dhoni as he said, "We kept losing wickets, he kept changing the bowlers, credit to him. Would be nice to meet him on Sunday. Regrets are not good in life. We expected dew would come, it didn't come. We didn't do right in both the departments. We'll give a crack again after two days."
Earlier in his post-match interview, The Gujarat Titans captain stated that the team made a few basic mistakes and that the group needs to make necessary improvements to make it to the finals. Hardik Pandya said, "I think we were quite spot-on, but we made basic errors. The kind of bowlers we had, we conceded 15 extra runs. (Conditions) A lot of things, we did right. We bowled a couple of softballs in between. We gave some runs. We don't need to look much into it. We have one more game. That's the beauty about him (Dhoni), with his mind and the way he uses the bowlers, it feels like he's adding 10 runs."