Newcomer Gujarat Titans won the Indian Premier League at its first attempt on Sunday with allrounder Hardik Pandya leading his team to an emphatic seven-wicket victory over Rajasthan Royals.
GT captain Pandya grabbed 3-17 with his impeccable medium-fast bowling in the final to restrict Rajasthan to 130-9 after Sanju Samson won the toss and chose to bat.
Pandya then made a crucial 34 off 30 balls as Gujarat reached 133-3 in 18.1 overs in front of raucous crowd of more than 100,000 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Opening batter Shubman Gill top-scored with an unbeaten 45 and sealed the memorable win with a six off Obed McCoy over deep square leg.
The Titans triumph was built on a good draft: Mohammed Shami, Rashid Khan, Lockie Ferguson and Pandya combined to make up an excellent bowling attack, with batting power coming from Gill, David Miller and Matthew Wade.
But putting a group of talented players together does not automatically bring success, and Pandya has expertly led them from the front despite captaining in the IPL for the first time.
In the final, on the biggest stage, he took the three prize wickets of Buttler, opposing captain Sanju Samson and Shimron Hetmyer and rotated his bowlers perfectly.
He was well supported by one of the world's best white-ball bowlers, Afghanistan's Rashid Khan, who took 1-18.
And when the batting stuttered at 23-2, he stopped any threat of a complete collapse by calmly negating Royals' bowling attack alongside Gill.
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