Gujarat Titans (GT) had a merry-go-round time in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the three seasons since their debut. They started off with a title in the inaugural season when they defeated Rajasthan Royals for the 2022 season before losing the final against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in 2023.
Gujarat Titans received a massive blow during the previous season of the event when their premier all-rounder of India, Hardik Pandya, who captained the side in the first two seasons of the competition, decided to return to his Mumbai Indians franchise for the 2024 season of the tournament. In his place, Shubman Gill was appointed as the new leader.
For the first three seasons of the tournament, their head coach was the former South African Gary Kirsten, who won’t be part of the upcoming season in 2025 due to being the new head coach of the Pakistan white-ball side from the recent T20 World Cup 2024 in the West Indies and the United States of America.
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The reports claimed that the bowling coach of the side, Ashish Nehra, could be promoted to the new head coach role, while a few alterations among the support staff of the side, are expected to happen.
Parthiv Patel to become the new batting coach for the Gujarat Titans
Vikram Solanki is expected to continue as the Director of Cricket for the side and was in attendance for the recent Ranji Trophy game at the Arun Jaitley Stadium between Delhi and Tamil Nadu. The former Indian opening batter Parthiv Patel is expected to replace Kirsten in the batting coach position.
Before this new move, the former left-handed opening batter was associated with Mumbai Indians as the talent scout was regularly spotted watching the domestic fixtures, even the age-group ones of the country.
The wicket-keeper batter featured in 139 IPL games where he notched up 2848 runs at an average of 22.60 and a strike rate of over 120, shouldering on 13 half-centuries at a best score of 81. The last season for him came in 2019 when he thumped 373 runs at a strike rate of around 140 for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).
Since he announced his retirement in December 2020, he has been busy with scouting and commentary work. With his incredible track record of finding decent domestic players, besides knowing the conditions of the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, he will be a valuable addition to the Gujarat Titans camp, who would look to assemble another title-winning squad for the mega auction.
Under Gill’s leadership, the Gujarat Titans ended in the eighth position with five victories in 14 games at a net run rate of -1.063. The inconsistency for the first half of the event, where they managed three wins out of seven encounters, put them under tremendous pressure.
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Hardik Pandya’s transfer didn’t help them in the season, besides the injury of the premier Indian pace bowler Mohammad Shami, whose knee surgery in February ruled him out of the action for those two months. This hampered the balance of the squad but, they will hope to work on the final retentions, and it will be interesting to see if they put their weight behind the fast bowler during the retention or the mega auction.
Gill is likely to get retained for the leadership position as the franchises have October 31 as the deadline for submitting the names of the retained players.