5 Best innings in IPL knockouts

While the pressure in each game is immense due to the dynamic nature of the league, it increases manifold in the knockouts-- the playoffs as they are known, where the teams doing well throughout the league phase get a slight advantage.

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The ultimate T-20 league in the world, the Indian Premier League is the biggest platform for cricketers to showcase their talent. It has gained popularity year after year and is today regarded as a very prestigious tournament across the globe.

As the top talents from across the world take part in this tournament, it has grown to become very competitive. Each team is filled with superstars with specific skills and hence most of the matches go down to the wire as there is little to separate all the teams. That is what makes the IPL extremely gripping and entertaining to watch.

While the pressure in each game is immense due to the dynamic nature of the league, it increases manifold in the knockouts– the playoffs as they are known, where the teams doing well throughout the league phase get a slight advantage.

The performances in the group stages don’t matter in the knockouts. A lot of players who have done well in the group stages have faltered in the pressure cooker situations. However, there have been a number of players who have stood up for their teams when it mattered the most and played incredible knocks to either help their teams advance further or even the trophy.

Over a period of 12 seasons, there have been a number of superb knocks in the knockout stages and hence it is a difficult task to pick just a few of them. However, keeping in mind a number of parameters like context, match situation, opposing line up, the final impact on the game etc.

Here is a list of 5 top knocks in IPL knockouts:

5. Adam Gilchrist: 85 off 35 vs Delhi Daredevils, semi-final, 2009

Adam Gilchrist
Adam Gilchrist. (Photo Source: Getty Images)

Adam Gilchrist is one the pioneers of limited-overs cricket. His aggressive batting as an opener playing for Australia redefined the art of opening the batting. Gilchrist was also considered as a big match player and it is evident in the fact that he has 2 fifty-plus scores and 1 hundred, all at more than run a ball in the 3 World Cup finals he featured in. It comes as no surprise then that the wicket-keeper batsman features in this list with an outstanding inning.

Gilchrist led the (now defunct) Deccan Chargers to the semi-finals in 2009 with a relatively young side. The chargers had finished at the bottom of the table in 2008 and it had already been a stunning turnaround for them.

In the semi-finals, they faced Delhi Daredevils(now Capitals) who were the table-toppers in the group stage and possessed a terrorizing batting line up having the likes of Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, David Warner and Ab de Villiers. The Chargers did a great job of restricting that batting line up of Delhi to a score of just 153.

While Delhi’s batting was a powerhouse, their bowling didn’t induce as much fear. However, they had accomplished bowlers like Ashish Nehra and Amit Mishra who had done a great job throughout the season. The chase wasn’t going to be any easy either as the Centurion pitch in South Africa had been assisting the bowlers and on top of it all, it was a knockout game. Gilchrist, however, had other plans.

In the first over against Dirk Nannes, the first ball Gilchrist played was a dot ball, and the next one a wide. But what followed was Gilchrist at his best. Gilchrist smashed Nannes, one of the fastest bowlers of the season for 5 consecutive boundaries, hitting the white cherry to all parts of the ground. And this was just a preview of what was to come.

He didn’t spare a single bowler and smashed them all over the park and runs came thick and fast every over. The Delhi bowlers just didn’t know where to hide. By the time he was dismissed in the 10th over, he had scored 85 of the team total of 102 and sealed the fate of the entire match single-handedly.

4. Virender Sehwag: 122 off 58 vs Chennai Super Kings, 2014, Qualifier 2

Virender Sehwag
Virender Sehwag. (Photo Source: Twitter)

The Nawab of Najafgarh, Virender Sehwag was one of the iconic Indian batsmen. He feared no bowlers or conditions. He believed he could whack any bowler out of the park on any pitch. The swashbuckling batsman played several match-winning innings in limited-overs and Tests for India and was also the first Indian batsmen to score a triple ton in Tests. In IPL, he hadn’t created the impact he would have liked across seasons, but this one innings blew away all his critics.

Sehwag was playing for the Kings XI Punjab in 2014, his first for the franchise. Punjab were having a dream season but were up against Chennai Super Kings, the most successful franchise in the IPL at that time who had already won 2 IPLs and qualified for the playoffs every season.

While Sehwag had played well all season, he hadn’t scored any massive runs, and just had one fifty to his name. With the way he had been striking the ball, everyone felt a big innings was around the corner. And it arrived on the big stage in Wankhede, Mumbai that fateful night against CSK when Punjab was put in to bat.

Sehwag was on guard right from ball one. He was striking the ball as cleanly as ever. Over after over, bowlers would come and be smashed away with disdain by Sehwag. By the end of the powerplay, he had already scored 42 off 18 balls and looked set for a big one. And boy did he make the opportunity count.

Accomplished Indian bowlers like Ashwin, Jadeja and Nehra were not shown any mercy at all. He hit them over cover as well as over midwicket. Over the years, Sehwag’s famed hand-eye coordination had started to give away but here it was on full display. He got to a well-deserved century but didn’t stop there either and added another crucial 22 runs before getting dismissed at 122 off just 58 balls. It was an absolutely devastating inning from the veteran.

3. Manish Pandey: 94 0ff 50 vs Kings XI Punjab, Final, 2014

Robin Uthappa And Manish Pandey in the IPL
Robin Uthappa. (Photo Source: Twitter)

Manish Pandey is perhaps one of the most underrated Indian cricketers. He had burst onto the scene as a talented youngster and was also the first Indian to score a ton in the IPL in 2009. Unluckily, over the years he hasn’t got enough opportunities to play for the Indian team despite putting in commendable performances whenever the chance arrived. Nevertheless, he has been a prolific player in the IPL all these years and has had several memorable innings, none more than the one in 2014.

Pandey had played for a couple of franchises before signing up with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in 2014. He hadn’t had as good a season as the team would have expected from him, but things were going to change on the D-Day. The Kolkata Knight Riders were playing the Kings XI Punjab in the finals.

While Kings Xi Punjab had been the table toppers, the Riders were coming off an incredible 8 match-winning streak and were in red-hot form. Punjab put a massive total of 199 on the board largely due to the extraordinary effort of Wriddhiman Saha who scored a belligerent 115.

While Punjab didn’t particularly have a very strong bowling line up, to chase 200 in a final is in itself a mammoth task. KKR didn’t start too well either losing Robin Uthappa, the season’s highest run-getter in the very first over itself and it seemed like KKR’s winning streak was going to come to an abrupt end in the finals. But Manish stepped up and stepped up big time when he was needed the most.

Pandey didn’t let Punjab realize the match was slipping out of their hands till it was too late. Pandey eventually was dismissed at 94 off 50 balls, leaving just 20 to get off 3 overs, which did get tricky, but Piyush Chawla pounced on the opportunity to become a hero and duly finished the match in the last over to hand KKR their second IPL victory. It was masterful innings from Pandey which held the team together after an early dismissal and helped them get within touching distance of a huge score and eventually with the trophy.

2. AB de Villiers- 79* off 48 vs Gujarat Lions, Qualifier 1, 2016

AB de Villiers
AB de Villiers. (Photo Source: BCCI)

Ab de Villiers, the most complete batsmen to have played the game, played several match-winning knocks for his country and franchises. He was someone who could play out 300 balls in a Test match as well score a 100 off 30 odd balls. Mr 360 along with his wide his variety of strokes also possessed the ability to stay cool and composed under pressure.

AB de Villiers has been a long-serving player for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, one of the two pillars of the franchise along with Virat Kohli. Back in 2016, when RCB had reached the playoffs it was largely due to the superb performances put in by both the champion batsmen.

While RCB had struggled due to their mediocre bowling, their batting, possessing a lot of firepower with the likes of Gayle, Watson and Kl Rahul present to support Kohli and AB, usually led them to victory. Banking on their batting might they reached the playoffs and were up against Gujarat Lions, the table toppers, in Qualifier 1.

Exceeding all expectations, the RCB bowlers did a fantastic job and restricted a batting heavy Gujarat to a par score of 158. While the game was being played in the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore, generally a batting paradise, this pitch seemed slightly slower. Despite that RCB was expected to chase down the target with ease.  But things hardly go the way you expect them to. Dhawal Kulkarni bowled a spell of a lifetime, picking up 4 wickets in no time and RCB was reeling at 29-5 within the powerplay with all their stalwarts dismissed apart from AB. All hopes of RCB fans were hinged on the great man.

And AB did what he does best. He played an extraordinary inning, soaking in all the pressure. He built a useful partnership with Stuart Binny by playing risk-free cricket. But when Binny was dismissed with the score reading 68-6 at the end of 10 overs, it seemed even AB wouldn’t be able to save RCB.

But he found an able ally in Iqbal Abdullah, who rotated the strike well and kept his nerve throughout the chase. AB had been very circumspect throughout the innings as his wicket was what stood between the Lions and victory. At the beginning of the 14th over, it started drizzling a bit and that’s when AB decided to take off to keep the DL score in check. Things started going RCB’s way and they started getting boundaries at a regular interval and eventually sealed the match comfortably in the 19th over.

It was a magnificent inning under immense pressure and AB showed his class once again. He initially played risk-free cricket, farmed the strike and then also keep the run rate in check. Truly multi-dimensional. While RCB painfully lost in the finals, this innings of AB sure is a very memorable one and one of the best in the IPL.

1. Shane Watson-117* off 58 vs Sunrisers Hyderabad, Finals,2018

Shane Watson
Shane Watson. (Photo: IANS)

Hands down the most impactful and brutal knock in an IPL knockout came from the bat of Shane Watson. Watson, one of the most consistent and destructive all-rounders the game has seen, has been an integral part of IPL right from its inception where he was awarded player of the tournament in the first season itself. He has been a superb player not just in the IPL but for Australia as well for a long period, doing the job of an all-rounder extremely well especially in limited-overs cricket.

While Shane Watson played for Rajasthan Royals the majority of his career, he has been with the Chennai Super Kings since 2018. He had a phenomenal season for them in 2018 scoring 555 runs, but it was in the final, the biggest stage of them all when he truly showed the world the might of Shane Watson.

CSK were up against Sunrisers Hyderabad, the team with the strongest bowling line up, which had defended a number of low totals in the season. SRH set CSK a daunting target of 179 and while the match was on a batting-friendly pitch, against Hyderabad’s phenomenal attack comprising Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Rashid Khan, it was going to be a tough ask.

Watson got off to the worst possible start playing out a maiden in the first over and falling to score a single run of his first 10 balls! The fans were shocked and it seemed like CSK was going to end up losing yet another finals. However, Watson fought, dug in and started scoring some runs. He was getting into the groove and SRH was unaware of what was about to hit them.

Watson got his timing going and hitting a couple of boundaries every over he raced away to a half-century in 33 balls. But the game turned on its head when Shane Watson tore into young Sandeep Sharma who had done a good job until then and scored 27 runs off him in 13th over bringing the equation down to almost run a ball. He continued motoring his way through and remarkably raised his century off just 51 balls. He didn’t stop there. He stayed right though the end staying unbeaten scoring 117 of the 179 required.

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