IPL 2025 GT vs MI | Decision to go with black-soil pitch not sudden, says GT skipper Gill

Pacer Trent Boult credits Gujarat Titans' tactics for IPL win, refuses to blame black soil pitch.

Pacer Trent Boult refused to pin Mumbai Indians’ defeat to Gujarat Titans in an IPL 2025 match down to the black soil pitch at the Narendra Modi Stadium here on Saturday.

“Good tactics from GT. If you’ve got an option to do that [play on a black soil pitch], it obviously makes sense. But I don’t think we’ll be using it as an excuse. There are players in our team who have played on all types of wickets. I thought they scrapped their way to a good total and they showed us how to bowl on that wicket. So full credit to them,” said Boult at the post-match press conference.

The surface used for the MI game was a different one from the one on which Titans suffered a defeat in their season opener to Punjab Kings, in a game which aggregated 475 runs.

GT skipper Shubman Gill though revealed that the decision to go with black soil for Saturday’s game was not a knee-jerk one, specifically targeting MI.

“We had decided to play on this wicket before we played the first match. We played the previous match on a red-soil wicket as there was not enough time for us to prepare a black-soil one.

“It was decided before we played the first match on that one and then we are going to play this match on a black-soil wicket. So, it had nothing to do with the opposition,” said Gill after the game.