Axar Patel’s all-round show (38 from 17 & 3/11) and medium-pacer Sandeep Sharma’s (3/22) early burst masterminded Kings XI Punjab’s 19-run win against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Friday in a low-scoring contest, thus boosting their chances of a place in the Indian Premier League qualifiers.
Defending a modest total of 138, KXIP’s bowlers – Sandeep Sharma and Patel in particular – landed wickets at regular intervals to twist the knife on the sorry RCB side, whose season continues to be in freefall, slumping to their fifth straight loss. Skipper Glenn Maxwell and Mohit Sharma picked up two wickets each as the home side were bundled out for 118.
Here are some of the moments that stood out in the thrilling contest:
Great batsman, even better sportsman
It was only the fifth ball of the game when the incident happened: Hashim Amla, who has been, without a shadow of a doubt KXIP’s best batsman in the team attempted to cut a Aniket Choudhary delivery outside the off stump. The umpires could be excused for not hearing a sound as faint edges could easily be drowned in the boisterous Chinnaswamy cauldron, especially in the early overs.
While umpire Shamshuddin hesitated, the South African didn’t as he made the long walk back to the pavilion. Whether or not he gets a fair play award for this, Amla’s honesty should rank as one of the standout moments, and it was one of the most accomplished foreign talents leading the way.
KXIP batsmen fail to build on starts
It was a slow wicket and the only way the batsmen were going to get on top of the bowlers was either through brute force or sound technical technical prowess. Another way to get one’s way around the bowlers – especially the spinners – is to rotate the strike and keep the scoreboard ticking.
Shaun Marsh and Manan Vohra were well-set at the crease. The former in particular, was in fine nick and had struck a couple of cracking drives to the fence but holed out in the deep offering a poor stroke. Patel, though, showed that he can strike the ball a long way, further explaining that accomplished hitters can survive on any wicket.
However, that wasn’t the case with Maxwell: He was struggling at the crease but decided to counter that with a wild switch-hit, which bit the dust. The ball didn’t come onto the bat quickly enough and the KXIP skipper was caught by Samuel Badree at short fine-leg.
How good is Chahal?
In the midst of RCB’s woeful season, one of their bright spots has been leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who had yet another fine outing. The leg-spinner used the pitch to his advantage, mixing up his pace well and also beating batsmen in flight. The way he setup Maxwell’s wickets was a stand-out in his spell. He also became RCB’s highest wicket-taker at the Chinnaswamy Stadium (34) during the contest, underlining his ability to come out trumps even on small batting-friendly grounds – he has finished his spell with an economy rate of more less than six runs an over on five occasions this year.
He could have one more wicket to his name had Kedar Jadhav not committed a howler behind the stumps with a stumping opportunity.
Sandeep Sharma scalps the ‘Big three’
It’s been an extremely topsy-turvy ride for Sandeep Sharma this season, much like the length of his career. He got off to a solid start, prominently featuring in KXIP’s back-to-back wins at the start of the tournament. He then went off the boil, which also coincided with his team’s form tapering off.
After masterminding KXIP’s crushing 10-wicket win against Delhi Daredevils in the last game, Sharma revealed that the team management had advised him to take a day off and focus on swinging the ball both ways, which is his forte. Here, he became the first bowler in the IPL to snare the wickets of Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and Ab de Villiers in the same match. The West Indian played a poor shot, tamely chipping the ball to cover. The RCB skipper was perhaps deceived by the ball keeping low and crashing onto the stumps.
The wicket of De Villiers saw the Patiala-born medium-pacer outsmart the batsman. Despite being clubbed for a boundary, Sharma got the better of the South African with a delivery that deviated off good length late, taking the bottom edge on its way through to keeper Wriddhiman Saha. Sharma is also the only bowler to take Kohli’s wicket five times in the tournament.
Natarajan’s nightmare
There was so much talk about the Tamil Nadu youngster T Natarajan, whose rise to the big bucks league became a widely documented rags-to-riches tale. The left-armer, so far, has only one wicket in the bag in five games and has looked out of his depth in the games he has played so far.
The chopping and changing in the early part of the IPL also didn’t help the 25-year-old’s confidence. In match dominated by bowlers, Natarajan leaked 15 runs in the only over he bowled, spraying a series of short deliveries wide outside the off-stump, almost costing his side the game.
Brief score:
- Kings XI Punjab 138/7 in 20 Overs (Axar Patel 38 not out, Manan Vohra 25; Aniket Choudhary 2/17, Yuzvendra Chahal 2/21) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 119 in 19 Overs (Mandeep Singh 46, Pawan Negi 21; Axar Patel 3/11, Sandeep Sharma 3/21) by 19 runs.
