The best, the worst and everything in between from the past ten days of the IPL’s tenth season
Srinath Sripath25-Apr-2017No T20 for old-school men?
Time to think again, say Kane Williamson and Hashim Amla. Two batsmen whose technical correctness and textbook perfection invoke more than a tinge of nostalgia, set the IPL alight last week, proving once again that there is a place for finesse and elegance in the game’s shortest format. After seeing Williamson’s match-winning 89 and Amla’s masterclass against Lasith Malinga, their captains have been served a reminder not to drop them again anytime soon.Pacemen turn on the heat
Another set of cricketers who have not had too much limelight in the IPL – fast bowlers – took centre stage once again. After Andrew Tye’s knuckleballs did the (hat-)trick in Rajkot, swing, pace and bounce troubled batsmen across venues last week. Bhuvneshwar Kumar turned the game around against Kings XI Punjab with his accuracy and nip, Mitchell McClenaghan dismantled Delhi’s brittle top order and Nathan Coulter-Nile got rid of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers in a dream spell on a rainy Kolkata night.T20’s trailblazer scales another peak
Chris Gayle is arguably T20 cricket’s foremost superstar, and among the few greats the format has seen in its short history. Last week, en route to his 38-ball 77, his first significant performance this season, Gayle crossed 10,000 runs in his 285th T20 innings. Some of the numbers he has racked up, such as his 18 hundreds (11 more than anyone else), prove why there is broad daylight between him and the rest of the pack.Rishabh Pant has found the going tough in the last two games•BCCIThe Super Kings roar again
Times certainly have changed for Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni since their halcyon years donning the yellow jersey in the IPL. Both of them have been through shaky periods of late, in their own, different ways. Raina has lost out on his BCCI contract, while Dhoni has faced public criticism from Harsh Goenka, brother of his side’s owner, Sanjiv. Raina and Dhoni made a statement of their own with match-winning knocks for their sides, reminding everyone why they are so feted as T20 stars. Harsh Goenka was reduced to tweeting praise of the former India captain, while Raina’s destructive knocks have been one of his side’s few shining lights so far.A golden duck and a Bombay duck
Rishabh Pant’s knock in Delhi’s opening game, in the aftermath of his father’s death, was one of the major storylines of the first week. Since then, his form with the bat has been patchy at best. Things have gone downhill since his quickfire 16-ball 38 against Kolkata Knight Riders at home. In Daredevils’ last two away games, Pant has failed to get off the mark, first with a slog sweep down long-on’s throat in Hyderabad, then fishing outside off stump to a Jasprit Bumrah jaffa in Mumbai. In the week when India are set to announce their squad for the upcoming Champions Trophy, these are twin setbacks he could have done without.Sachin Tendulkar celebrated his 44th birthday in front of a doting Wankhede crowd•BCCIThe s#&t question
Legspinners have dismissed Glenn Maxwell 11 times in the IPL, of which Amit Mishra accounts for four dismissals. So, after Mishra picked him up once again during Kings XI’s defeat to Delhi, it was not entirely surprising that there was a question in the post-match press conference about his fragility against spin. “That’s a shocking question”, Maxwell retorted, citing his recent six-hitting form against spin, when another reporter pressed him on his apparent knack of getting out to leg-spinners on April 15 for the past three years. This time Maxwell lost it, sliding down the political correctness scale, calling it a “s&#t question”.Tendulkar pierces the gaps… on his birthday cake
It is IPL 10, and also the tenth time Sachin Tendulkar celebrated his birthday during the course of the tournament. Matthew Hayden, who is part of the commentary team, baked him a cricket field-themed cake with a bat and ball as the icing, and interviewed Tendulkar by the Mumbai Indians dugout. Tendulkar, though, refused to cause damage to a cricket bat out of respect, even on a cake. He then cut through the green cricket field portion, quipping about “finding the gaps on the field”.Brendon McCullum’s hat was the difference between an acrobatic catch and an avoidable embarrassment•BCCIThe hat trick that wasn’t
Wearing a floppy hat for a floodlit cricket match is akin to wearing sunglasses in your bedroom. While there is no need for it, it is harmless most of the time. Not for Brendon McCullum, though, as his acrobatic effort by the boundary to get rid of Chris Gayle, was undone by the brim of his hat grazing the skirtings. It only made him wear the hat more: he turned up to open the batting in the next match without a helmet.Lancashire v Durham, round two
Jos Buttler had smashed Ben Stokes for two sixes when Mumbai Indians met Rising Pune Supergiant earlier this season. This time, though, a night after his father Ged threw him a surprise by landing in India, Stokes foxed his England team-mate with a slower one. Buttler ended up scooping one gently into long-on’s hands, and Stokes was so pumped he went on to bowl a maiden over. Ben Stokes, King in the North, first of his name.Commentary gem of the week
This was long before Royal Challengers had sunk to the IPL’s lowest total. “It’s just a mobile number at the moment,” Ravi Shastri said about the scorecard, while the collapse was on. RCB’s ten batsmen were dismissed for what ended up reading 7018982020. It was a unique occurrence in IPL history, and it strangely came on the same day they had put up the highest T20 score, four years before.
