With days to go for the IPL 2024 inauguration in Chennai. Gujarat Titans are expected to key player recovery, as they have lost Pandya.
For IPL 2024 GT have onboarded new faces to the team.
With the new purchases, GT now have a strength of 25 members squad, with 8 overseas players. In the auction, the franchise bought eight players and myKhel takes a look at three of the names, who are expected to lead the fresh charge.
Umesh Yadav
At a fag end of his career, Umesh Yadav is expected to declare his retirement after the India test series. However, his recent gloomy post on X (formerly Twitter) after not getting into the squad, has said, “Just because books are covered with dust, the stories don’t end.”
Despite, such issues, his inclusion to the team GT would be a charge of experience as well as pacing performance. GT have bought him at 5.80 Cr. The right-arm fast bowler played 141 matches for IPL, 140 innings, bagged 136 wickets with an 8.43 economy rate. In-swing with 138-140 km per hour would be a challenge for the rest of the teams in IPL 2024.
Spencer Johnson
The 28-year-old left-arm overseas player was largely a player not known to the Indian fans until Gujarat Titans splurged a lucrative amount of Rs 10 crore at the IPL auction. A late bloomer, Spencer Johnson made his debut on 2017 in Australian first-class cricket.
In a recent performance at Sydney, Brisbane Heat vs Sydney Sixers, he hauled 4 wickets for 26 runs pulled him to the frontline. Besides, Johnson’s hit-the-deck style while clocking over 140kph started to turn heads, could be a bonus for team GT.
Shahrukh Khan
27-year-old cricketer Shahrukh Khan has been an exciting talent to look at in the shortest format of the game. However, lack of consistency has mellowed down his presence in the richest franchise tournament. The pinch-hitter has the potential to face fast paces across all pitching conditions and is a big hitter with bat, and astonishing with right arm off-break.
By buying him for a sum of Rs 7.40 crore at the auction, Gujarat Titans showed how much they believe in the cricketer. Among his recent performances, Khan was the highest wicket-taker with 17 strikes in nine games, at 6.66 economy in Tamil Nadu Premiere League 2023.
Sumit Bhattacharya Mykhel
source: mykhel.com