As IPL 3 got underway yesterday at the D.Y Patil Stadium in Mumbai, Hirok Banerjee writes of the first match between Kolkata Knightriders and Deccan Chargers.
The opportunity was there. Adam Gilchrist did the unthinkable - he won the toss and chose to bowl in an Indian track which held the promise of a lovely batting paradise. And then the Knights blew it away. In 2 balls. It was the wily old fox named Chaminda who showed that there is really no substitute to doing the basics right.
The first two balls to Ganguly were exactly where it should have landed. On off-stump, moving away slightly. Ganguly fished for the first one, left the second and edged the third. Shah Rukh's dream lay in tatters. For a brief period, when Pujara joined Hodge, there was a faint glimmer of resurrection. Only to fizzle out within the next 3 overs.
And then started the fightback. Led by two men who only had their reputations to fall back on. Angelo Mathews crafted an innings which was distinctly different in flavour from the usual T20 slam-bang innings. Mixing caution with calculated aggression, Mathews remained unbeaten with Owais Shah holding the fort at the other end allowing his partner to have a go at the final five. Their partnership of 120+ runs gave the Riders a fairly decent total which appeared by no means enough on a cracker of a pitch.
Gilchrist and Laxman were lucky, to say the least. On at least five occasions either of them could have got out but they rode their luck and stiched a 50+ first wicket partnership before Laxman got out playing an uncharacteristic shot to Murali Kartik. Gilchrist, dropped twice, carried on to complete a scratchy half-century and finally holed out to a fine catch to Tiwary.The harakiri started soon after. Andrew Symonds, Gibbs and Sharma got out to inexcusable shots when the need of the moment was to simply bide time and finish off the match on the foundations laid by the opening partnership.
The turning point of the match was a moment of inspiration by the old warhorse Sourav Ganguly. A duck when he went out to bat and things not going according to his liking for the first 10 overs of batting and bowling, he kept at it. And the ball before Rohit got out, he pulled the long-off into the circle to mid-off pushing the fine-leg back. The next ball, Rohit Sharma played a shot which definitely would give nightmares to W.G.Grace and hit it straight to mid-off. All of the bowling changes from over 10 worked for Ganguly. Every bowler took a wicket at the most crucial times. The field placements and marshalling of resources was what finally did it for KKR.
In the final analysis, KKR played well for the last 5 overs in both innings. Which has two diametrically opposite implications. One, they have a win by just having played 10 overs out of a possible 40. Two, any other responsible and slightly circumspect opposition would have had a comfortable victory. Many a mile to go, but maybe, the beginning of something sensational.
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