IPL 2018: Match 13, KKR vs DD- Rating of the Match

Homework is paramount in order to get a lid on an opposition, especially when the game is at the opposition’s home ground. Hold on; the man who is the skipper of the away team has plied his trade at the stadium for more than 100 games. Gautam Gambhir knows the Eden Gardens and the Kolkata Knight Riders by the back of his palm and it showed off in Delhi Daredevils strategies in the beginning.

The difference between Narine and Lynn… Is there any?

Sunil Narine’s penchant for smacking the slower bowlers is an open secret. Hence the tactic against Narine was crystal clear as Trent Boult and Chris Morris churned out the ‘chin-music’ which rattled the Trinidadian, which led to his demise. Chris Lynn has previously perished to left-arm spin on four out seven occasions in the IPL and Shahbaz Nadeem was introduced in the third over itself.

Lynn and Narine are statistically class apart, being a top-order and a lower-order batsman respectively. However, it was impossible to differentiate based on their style of plays, both against the pacers and the spinners. Both cleared their front leg and yanked their bat as if their life depended on them, leave alone taking the feet to the pitch. The result- dot balls, wickets, despair and two scratchy knocks.

The sprint by Rana and Russell

Potholes in roads are a detriment to driving as they never allow cars to accelerate, the exact role played by wickets during an innings. The Knights threatened with every partnership, but Delhi Daredevils had something or the other up their sleeve. Nitish Rana and Andre Russell had other ideas. Nitish Rana exemplified the fact that runs can be scored ‘with a proper technique’, even at a strike-rate of 168.57.

Ten years ago, “He came in like lightning and left like thunder”- Ravi Shastri quoted these words for Yuvraj Singh after he smacked Stuart Broad to the cleaners at Durban. Though the innings by Russell didn’t create as much hype as that by Yuvi, the impact nonetheless was no different. More importantly, the ball found the middle of the bat and subsequently, the stands.

The support for Narine  

The start for Delhi, in terms of runs scored, was pretty to similar to that of the Chennai Super Kings against the Knights. However, the difference which made was the three wickets and most importantly Sunil Narine, upon whom KKR pin most of their hopes, didn’t pick any wicket. In fact till the 11th over he bowled one in which he gave 11 runs. To be precise, the top six scalps didn’t include Narine.

Kuldeep Yadav was among the most expensive but churned out the wickets of Rishabh Pant and Glenn Maxwell which ensured the Knights’ heist over Gautam Gambhir’s men. Luck also favoured the chinaman bowler as both the wickets came of rank long-hops, which otherwise deserve to sail through the night skies outside the stadium.

Narine didn’t return empty-handed as his ‘mysteries’ were ‘Too Hot and Too Cool’ to handle for the poor tail-enders. Meanwhile, barring Pant and Maxwell, the remaining score read as follows- 814122760, never mind mistaking them for a mobile number.

Rating of the Match- 3.5