IPL 2 – Day Eleven – Pathan scares the devils
There was only one match on Day Eleven. I could have completed this post on the same night and published. But I didn’t do it. And I didn’t do it yesterday as well. Not that there are many fans – eagerly awaiting for my post to arrive at their mail steps.
Yesterday, when I didn’t make even one post on IPL, two matches were played, that too thrillers. Today already the first game is underway. Now the required post rate is climbing up fast. So I have the pressure to bring down the required post rate quickly or give a walk over. I was thinking if could get a fake IPL Player for meeting the required post rate. After all the FIPLP is going great guns getting 1000s of comments for each of his posts which puts my blog comment rate to shame.
Before the required rate climbs up any further, let me get into the serious stuff of writing these IPL posts that no one reads.
I had expected Delhi Dare Devils to win this match without any trouble. Their batting was better in comparison to Royals (their list boasts the only centurion of this IPL season A B Devilliers, man of the previous match Dilshan and Daniel Vettori besides great in patches Sehwag and still searching for the NZL kind of form Gambhir. Less written about Dinesh Karthick is better. I think he continues to be in the playing eleven only because they don’t have an alternative wicket keeper.
In comparison, Royals had batsmen in the (out of) form of Smith, Quiney, Valhaty, Mascaranhas and Asnodkar. This meant Royals went into bat with only six players – three bowlers, Yousuf Pathan, Ravinder Jadeja and Shane Warne.
It took the genius of Shane Warne as Captain and main strike bowler to restrict Delhi Dare Devils to 143 in 20 overs. Shane Warne’s captaincy and outside support of DD through Gambhir, Sehwag and Dilshan who sacrificed their wickets to put a smile on the face of Shilpa Shetty and her sister.
However, Devilliers, Vettori and little known (to me) Manhas ignored the distraction of the Shettys to concentrate on the just the cricket ball to put up a not so bad – considering the batting strength of Shilpa Shetty’s team – 143 on the board.
While I had calculated well comparing the batting prowess of the Devils vis-a-vis the Royals, I didn’t concentrate on the bowling strength of the Devils. In hindsight, DD’s bowling comprised of only one bowler of any quality, i.e., Daniel Vettori. The weakness of the DD bowling attack had hitherto been masked by the better batting performance of this team as well as the inept batting of the opponents. Still, in this match as the DD bowlers were once again up against a bad batting line up I expected DD to seal the match.
My conviction seemed to be right atleast till the 12th over of the Royals’ innings. At the end of the 12th over, Royals score read 67 for the loss of five wickets and the saving grace appeared to be the presence of Graeme Smith at 29 not out (his best in this IPL edition). I didn’t expect Yousuf Pathan to shine in this match, especially in the pressure situation. I was wrong. My thought was clouded by judgement that DD was the stronger team to win the match. (The fact that I had also betted that DD will win the match at the Fantasy Cricket Game also made me to support Sehwag’s team).
Unexpectedly for me, Pathan decided to take the match on his shoulders and launched his lusty hits from the 13th over onwards. He took eighteen runs with 2 sixes off one Vettori over.
After a brief lull (Pathan’s standards) once again lauched his attack in the 17th over, this time against Amit Mishra, taking 12 runs including a four coming out of a dropped chance and then turned towards the frail looking Ashish Nehra hitting two mighty sixes off him to seal the match in favour of the Royals and at the same time making Shilpa smile so wide that I forgot if there was any flesh left between her ear and the lips!
Someone might say (even Yousuf Pathan said that) that the smaller boundaries helped the big hitter, but some of those sixes would have been sixes even if the boundary line was kept as far as India.
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Yousuf Pathan played a brilliant innings to pull off victory for Rajasthan Royals.
RR needs to look at its batting strength. With Shane Warne operating and Pathan as a thinking cricketer, I think they are okay with 8 overs of an innings.
I think Smith’s innings was those memorable one. He was determined to stay the crease till the end. Though it was slow, I personally liked the way he batted.
Lusty Hitting = Yousuf Pathan.
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