Not Suresh Raina, Gujarat Titans sign this 20-year old batter as Jason Roy’s replacement

IPL newbies Gujarat Titans have roped in Afghanistan keeper-bat Rahmanullah Gurbaz as replacement for Jason Roy, as per reports from several reliable sources. 

Roy, the hard-hitting England opener, had made himself unaware for the tournament a few weeks ago citing bio-bubble fatigue. The last-minute backout seemed to have come as a major blow for the Titans, who were already struggling to find the right balance of their top-order batsmen. So much so that in our iteration of the Titans’ best playing XI, we shifted Matthew Wade from his preferred finisher’s spot to a top-order role.

Gurbaz’s addition covers a lot of bases for the Gujarat Titans

However, with Gurbaz around now, the Titans have given themselves a left-handed option to partner Shubman Gill at the top. Gurbaz’s figures in the shortest form of the game read 1620 runs from 69 T20 innings averaging 24.17 and striking at 151.82.

The 20-year-old Gurbaz also offers the Titans an extra wicket-keeping option; a department in which they previously only had the services of Matthew Wade and Wriddhiman Saha. And considering the fact that Saha might be unavailable for the first few matches owing to a defamation suit from a ‘respected’ journalist, the acquisition seems to have covered quite a few bases for the Titans. 

The Gujarat franchise is yet to formally announce the news on their social accounts, but a series of stories posted on Gurbaz’s Instagram account recently have all but confirmed his participation in the IPL 2022. 

No place for Suresh Raina in IPL 2022 yet

Gurbaz’s signing also brings a disappointing end to a whole bunch of fans hopes that Suresh Raina would be roped in as Roy’s replacement by the Gujarat franchise. Not long after Roy’s withdrawal from the IPL, fans had started to flood the Gujarat Titans’ social-media pages demanding them to add Raina into their team.

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However, the Gujarat management never really seemed to have Raina in their scheme of things. In fact, one of the Titans’ official quoted outright that the team had no interest in acquiring Raina, who had previously captained the Rajkot-based Gujarat Lions franchise in IPLs 9 and 10.