Former India player Mohammad Kaif has highlighted the Gujarat Titans’ (GT) death-bowling issues heading into IPL 2026. He pointed out that Mohammed Siraj is more proficient with the new ball and got hit at the death in the franchise’s last few matches in IPL 2025.

The Gujarat Titans retained 20 players heading into the IPL 2026 auction. They acquired four seam-bowling options in Ashok Sharma, Jason Holder, Prithviraj Yarra and Luke Wood at the mini auction last year.

During a discussion on Star Sports, Kaif was asked about his thoughts on the Gujarat Titans’ bowling attack heading into IPL 2026.

“Siraj is a new-ball bowler. Prasidh Krishna bowls in the middle. His strength is hit-the-deck bowling. The Ahmedabad ground is big. The square boundaries are big. He bowls hard lengths in the middle. So I can understand what his role is,” the former India batter responded.

“Prasidh Krishna has shown improvement in his slower balls as well. The ball dips and he picks up wickets, but they don’t have death bowling. Kagiso Rabada is getting hit. Siraj also got hit. I am talking about the final three or four matches last year. Prasidh Krishna got hit,” he added.

Mohammad Kaif pointed out that Ashok Sharma is new and young, and might not get to play at the start of IPL 2026. While acknowledging that Kagiso Rabada used to bowl yorkers earlier, he highlighted that the South African seamer’s form has been on the wane lately.

“They had to play the Eliminator” – Mohammad Kaif on the Gujarat Titans’ bowling issues in IPL 2025

In the same discussion, Mohammad Kaif highlighted that although the Gujarat Titans assemble a great squad every year, they couldn’t finish in the top two in IPL 2025 despite winning nine of their first 12 matches.

“This team has two backups for every player. They always win the auction. Compared to other teams, their auction planning is fantastic. However, last year, they had won nine of the first 12 matches, and were sitting on top, but they couldn’t come in the top two after that. They had to play the Eliminator. They lost their last three matches consecutively,” he said.

The cricketer-turned-commentator pointed out that the Shubman Gill-led side’s bowling got exposed under pressure in the business end of IPL 2025.

“Teams were scoring 225-odd against them. Their bowling got exposed. Bowling was their strength at the start, but when the main tournament came, when they had to win one match to qualify for the top two, they lost all three. So the bowling also got exposed under pressure. So, along with batting, they will have to pay attention to bowling as well this time,” Kaif observed.

The Gujarat Titans conceded 235 runs against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and 230 runs against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in their last two league games of IPL 2025, losing both matches by big margins. The Mumbai Indians (MI) then scored 228 runs against them in the Eliminator and eventually won the game by 20 runs.