Saturday 14 May 2011

Surrendering to Dinesh Karthik!

Well the cricketing world has seen players like Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Sehwag and Dhoni to name a few who have won many games for their teams single handed. But, if someone like Dinesh Karthik does the same, either the cricketing world has seen a new talent or has the same been dreaming. Yesterday was one such day when Dinesh Karthik did exactly what was expected off him but not anticipated. Dinesh Karthik was individually instrumental in chasing down a huge target of 178 against the Kochi Tuskers. For a change, this was a neutral venue hosted by neither of the teams.

A total of 178 has rarely been found to be chased and that too if any team has been able to chase it down successfully with as many as 7 balls to spare, the efforts of that particular team should not go unrewarded. One thing that can be realized from looking at the scorecard is that the pitch definitely favored the batsmen which in turn favored the T20 game of cricket. This is the third time a team has successfully chased down a total in excess of 170 runs. Previously, the Delhi Daredevils chased down 187 against Pune Warriors, days after Punjab won against Chennai after successfully chasing down 188.

I beg your pardon; there was a match where Kochi Tuskers Kerala successfully chased down a total of 183 against Mumbai Indians which takes the tally to 4. Coming to the game between Kochi Tuskers and Kings XI Punjab, there were four major contributions to the Kochi Tuskers with Mahela Jayawardane being the daddy of them all scoring 76 runs. Lesser contributions include Owais Shah's 23 and McCullum's 32. Can anyone of you spare the Kings XI Punjab bowlers for bowling as many as 19 wise deliveries that equally contributed to the Kochi's score? Added to that was using only 5 bowlers.

The Kings XI Punjab captain used only five bowlers which happen to be the minimum number of bowlers any team can use. But, everything got washed away as the Kings XI Punjab team eventually won the game by 6 wickets. One more player who made it count for his team was R P Singh who grabbed 4 out of the 6 Punjabi wickets that fell. This feat should no doubt go down as one of the great bowling performances in IPL. Now, once again, the man of the match debate should inevitably pop up when RP Singh stood the chance better than anybody else.

No comments: