Former teammates Hardik Pandya and Sai Kishore had a heated standoff in the IPL 2025 match on Saturday (March 29). Featuring in the Gujarat Titans (GT) versus Mumbai Indians (MI) clash, the duo exchanged some nasty words.
The incident unfolded during the 15th over of MI’s chase. Kishore bowled a good delivery to Hardik, which the latter defended. The lanky spinner wanted to put the MI captain under pressure, so he stared him down after picking up the ball.
Hardik did not back down and proceeded to hurl a couple of abuses at the bowler. Kishore hit back at the all-rounder with some words of his own, prompting the on-field umpires to intervene and separate the two.
However, Hardik and Kishore buried the hatchet soon after. They were seen embracing each other during the customary post-match handshake, much to the delight of the fans.
Following the match, Sai Kishore played down the heated exchange, saying that Hardik was a good friend of his and they were simply playing the game of cricket hard and fair.
"He’s a good friend of mine, inside the field it should be like that, but we don’t take things personally," Kishore told the broadcaster.
Coming to the match, Gujarat Titans registered a comprehensive 36-run victory over Mumbai Indians at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Asked to bat first, the Titans got off to a fabulous start as the duo of captain Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan added 78 runs for the opening wicket. After Gill’s dismissal on 38, Sudharsan (63) forged a 51-run stand with Jos Buttler (39). However, rest of the batters failed to rise to the occasion as GT’s innings was limited to 196/8.
Defending the total, GT bowlers kept MI quiet and restricted them to just 160/6 in 20 overs despite the conditions being conducive to batting in the second innings. Suryakumar Yadav waged a lone battle with the bat, scoring 48 off 28 deliveries.
Prasidh Krishna was the stand-out bowler for Gujarat, picking up two wickets by conceding 18 runs in four overs. Mohammed Siraj dented MI at the start of the chase, removing both the openers to return with the figures of 2 for 34 in four overs.
