If ever proof was needed that the game of cricket is a great leveller and can lift you to the skies and bring you down with a huge thump, and also the other way around, it was seen in the match between the defending champion Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and their southern neighbours Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
It was a virtual knockout game for both teams. RCB had to win within certain parameters of the net run rate to go ahead of CSK and qualify for the playoffs as the fourth team with Kolkata (Knight Riders), Rajasthan (Royals) and (Sunrisers) Hyderabad, who had already qualified for the three other slots. For CSK, if they lost the game in such a way that their net run rate would be one decimal point better than Bangalore’s, they would be the fourth team in the playoffs.
So, when the last over of the game was to be bowled, with Chennai needing 17 runs to qualify, guess who was given the ball. Yash Dayal. Yes, the same Yash Dayal who had been smashed by Rinku Singh for five sixes last season when Kolkata needed 30 runs to win in the last over. When the first ball of the over went for a humongous six off the bat off the one and only M.S. Dhoni, the RCB fans must have thought, “Oh no, here we go again”. That’s where Dayal showed he had learned from his Rinku Singh experience. Instead of looking to bowl the fast yorkers he bowled to Rinku, he delivered the back of the hand slower delivery this time, and even the ‘Great’ M.S. Dhoni was deceived by the slowness. Though the ball was in the slot, he couldn’t generate enough power to take the ball over the ropes and was caught in the deep.
The next few were similar deliveries, and the batters swung and missed. It was redemption time, as only the game of cricket can provide, and more than the bowler himself, his family and close ones would have shed tears of joy. For their very own Yash had stopped not just any ordinary player but probably the greatest finisher in the game, MSD, and another accomplished match winner, Ravindra Jadeja, from spoiling the Bangalore dream once again.
Cricket has batters getting fluently to 99 but then struggling to get a century, and bowlers who have been walloped for five balls picking up a wicket off the final delivery of the over to show that it is a great leveller.
It is such a feel-good story, for when it came to crunch time again, the man who had been hammered last season got up after the first blow and stood triumphantly tall. Hopefully, this will be just the beginning of a resurgence for Yash, and other bowlers who have been taken to the cleaners this season. They will see that there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
By the way, Rinku’s massive effort wasn’t credited to coach Chandu (Chandrakant) Pandit by anybody last season, like all the great efforts of Kolkata this season are being suggested as the influence of the current mentor and former skipper Gautam Gambhir. Of course, Gambhir himself will be the first to acknowledge that the credit can’t go to any single individual, as he has been harping on about the 2011 World Cup finals win. Pandit is still the coach too and what it indicates is that the media will invariably give the bouquet to the person who is the more famous and marketable to get the eyeballs or optics, as it’s called now while those who have also had a significant role to play will hardly, if ever, get a mention.
India starts its campaign for the ICC men’s T20 World Cup against Ireland. With the captain, vice-captain and key batter and bowlers’ franchise being knocked out of the IPL, these players will get some quality time with their families before they embark on the World Cup. The fact that they have been playing in the same format should be a big help, as it should not take too long for them to get back into the rhythm.
Ireland cannot be taken lightly, as indeed any team in this ultra-short format of the game. The Indian team’s effort must be to win big and try to intimidate their future opponents.
Indian fans have been waiting since 2007 for another T20 World Cup win — to echo the Bangalore franchise war cry, ‘Ee Saala Cup Namde’.
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