IPL 2020 | MI vs KKR - Today I Learnt - SKY's the limit and the 15.5 Crore reality ‘cheque’
Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav played two fantastic innings to push Kolkata Knight Riders under pressure right from the very beginning after which KKR were always playing catch-up. The game, however, raised questions on KKR’s move on Cummins and the impact it left on them.
Brief Scores: Mumbai Indians 195/5 (Rohit Sharma 80, Suryakumar Yadav 47; Shivam Mavi 32/2, Andre Russell 17/1) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 146/9 (Pat Cummins 33, Dinesh Karthik 30; James Pattinson 2/25, Trent Boult 2/30) by 49 runs
SKY is one of India’s finest player of spin
At a time when Sanju Samson’s IPL performance has been hyped so much to ignore his under-performance in domestic cricket, Suryakumar Yadav has remained a nebulous entity in Indian cricket whose magnificent performances have always flown under the radar. But the audacity with which he bats beggars belief with his batting against spinners is one of the very best the generation has seen. The way he took on Kuldeep Yadav’s wrong ‘un from round the wicket belied belief and the wrist-spinner’s plan to the bin. Kuldeep then tried to outfox him with a slower one but he rocked back to hit him through the cover. Then again, it is not a one-game show as the man from Mumbai has done that time and again in the IPL, only to be time and again denied an illustrious India call.
IPL teams, never again shell out 15 Crore for a bowler
Well, if your name is not Jasprit Bumrah and you can’t win 5 matches in a season single-handedly, honestly, no bowler deserves to earn that amount because hey, that is how T20 works. Not to blame Pat Cummins, even though his tactics of bowling short balls to Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya, was baffling, but the format doesn’t allow the bowlers to have the same amount of winning abilities to the bowlers who have only 24 balls to make an impact. While the same could be understandable - it is still difficult to comprehend - for an impact player like Sunil Narine, whose batting gives the sides a different dimension, the likes of Pat Cummins, Jaydev Unadkats or Mitchell Starcs of the world should’ve been kept at bay with less than 10 crores.
Karthik at the top is a wise option
With Kolkata Knight Riders having the likes of Eoin Morgan and Andre Russell in the middle-order, Dinesh Karthik pushing himself down to don the role of a finisher doesn’t really make cricketing sense. Historically, Karthik has been able to do multiple roles at the same time, but he is no magician of a finisher like Russell was last year or Morgan with England. He takes his own sweet time and can play the anchor role while letting Morgan and Russell teeing off right from the word go. It allowed the side a solid balance but what was Nikhil Naik doing there? Especially when you have Siddhesh Lad, one of the finest young talents in the country, waiting in the wings, choosing Naik over him should baffle all and sundry.
Over-rate is a joke in IPL
Sure enough, the IPL earns its bills with the numerous adverts, carefully planned breaks and stuff like strategic time-outs but it is outrageous to note that the Mumbai Indians innings today went on for 125 minutes, which is two hours and five mins. In a time where the sport is making a case for itself to reduce the time even further, who are we fooling here? The fact that there were 12 extras, the matter surely got delayed and the lack of crowd meant players had to collect the balls by themselves, which adds to the time last but not the way it did. Players need to be careful and the BCCI, who are stringent in its approach, has to ensure that this crime is not repeated again.