Sportsnob – Critics Corner

In what proved to be a return to competitive cricket at IPL 3, the Chennai Super Kings beat the Delhi Daredevils by 5 wickets, with 5 balls to spare, on a slightly two-faced Kotla wicket this Friday afternoon. Although the pitch did act up from time to time, for the most part it was a featherbed, as Virender Sehwag and Matthew Hayden, as well as a debutant mongoose bat will attest to.

The Cobra

Dinesh Karthik, captaining in place of the injured Gautam Gambhir, won the toss and chose to bat first. As is his wont, Sehwag didn’t waste any time, and toyed with the Super Kings bowlers much as a cobra would toy with its prey – tormenting them, taunting them, and then zap! Another ball dispatched into or over the ropes. Even though Warner departed relatively early, things looked ominous as delivery after delivery disappeared.

Debut skipper Suresh Raina must have wondered whether bad karma from a previous life was at work, until the evergreen Murali struck with two wickets in an over – the mercurial Dilshan falling first, giving Raina the first (and easiest) of the three catches he ended up taking. What followed had a sense of déjà vu about it, as Justin Kemp reprised his heroics for the Hyderabad Heroes in the ICL, grasping a Sehwag clout one-handed, out of thin air, inches short of the boundary line – a truly brilliant catch.

From then on, the Delhi innings could only trundle where it had once galloped. It took a late surge from Rajat Bhatia to bump their score up to 185. Chennai were superb in the field – the second and third of the afore-mentioned catches by Raina were outstanding – something which has certainly been improved on since last year’s farcical state of affairs.

The Super Kings’ innings started well, with 4 boundaries coming off Umesh Yadav’s first over. Parthiv Patel was then run out by a combination of poor calling and superman skills from AB Devilliers. It didn’t help that Patel also appeared to have the turning circle of a luxury cruise liner. Hayden knocked another one to the fence and then called for the much-awaited mongoose bat.

The Mongoose

The blade belongs to a bat that Sachin Tendulkar might have used when he was, say, a foot shorter than he is today. But it’s all meat, and there’s a long handle to go with it. If Sehwag was a cobra, then it was apt that a mongoose would be needed to counter him. (Oh, and if you didn’t see this ‘joke’ coming, please drop an email to sportsnob@gmail.com for further instructions)

Hayden went berserk. 18 runs came off a Rajat Bhatia over, with three fours and six. Dilshan wasn’t so lucky – 21 came off one of his overs, including 3 maximums – and the big Aussie reached his 50 off 24 balls. The thing about this bat is, even the shots which don’t appear to be well timed seem to accelerate in mid-air after leaving the blade. By the time Haydos departed to an outstanding catch by Dilshan, diving forward at mid-on, he had plundered 93 runs off 43 balls.

Morkel departed soon-after, and suddenly the game appeared to be on again. However, a steady 49 by Suresh Raina and a quickfire dozen from Murali Vijay meant that the Super Kings squeezed home – the skipper clearing the ropes off the first ball of the final over to win the match.

After two days of incredibly one-sided matches, it was good to see a game contested till the death again. However, the main takeaway from this contest, more than anything, was the brutal introduction of the mongoose to the IPL.

Picture Courtesy: Sky Sports