TACTICAL BLUNDERS
Follow UsMatch 53, Kolkata Knight Riders vs Punjab Kings at Eden Gardens
The Blunder
Shikhar Dhawan trusting Liam Livingstone over Harpreet Brar on a spin-friendly wicket
What happened?
Defending 180 on a spin-friendly wicket, Punjab, after a slightly wayward start, choked the KKR batters and brought the equation down to 104 needed off 10. An asking rate of 10.4 is not too much, but this was a surface on which the spinners were incredibly hard to put away: after 30 overs in the game, spinners had figures of 6/106 off 16 overs, which is an economy of 6.62.
Punjab had six more overs of Chahar and Brar up their sleeve, so they were more or less in control of the game. All they had to do was, well, go with the flow.
Dhawan, though, tried to be cute, and with two left-handers in the middle, threw the ball to part-time off-spinner Livingstone over Harpreet Brar. At this point, mind you, Livingstone had figures of 1-0-11-0 compared to Brar’s 1-0-4-1.
Disaster ensued. Nitish Rana was in no mood to let the opportunity pass, took 16 off Livingstone’s second, and the over ended up changing the course of the contest.
KKR went on to win the match by 5 wickets and, tragically enough, Brar ended that game having bowled a solitary over.
Match 40, Delhi Capitals vs Sunrisers Hyderabad in Delhi
The Blunder
DC promoting Priyam Garg and Sarfaraz over Axar with a left-arm spinner and leg-spinner operating for SRH
What happened?
Chasing 198, Delhi had got off to a dream start thanks to Phil Salt and Mitch Marsh and were 105/1 at the halfway stage, needing just 93 more.
However, soon three wickets fell in as many overs and at 125/4 in 13.2 overs, DC were slightly under the pump.
The good news, though, was that they still had their most in-form batter — at that point — Axar Patel in the sheds. SRH were choking the DC right-handers with negative match-ups (left-arm spin and leg-spin) and Axar was the perfect weapon for the hosts to neutralize this threat.
DC ideally should have sent Axar in at No.5 when Manish Pandey perished, but, flabbergastingly, they did not even send the left-hander in at No.6.
With Akeal Hosein, Mayank Markande and Abhishek Sharma operating, they sent the right-handed Sarfaraz Khan at No.6 to bat alongside another right-hander, Priyam Garg. Yes, two RHBs were asked to deal with spinners who turn the ball away.
DC were able to add just 16 off the following 18 balls and Axar ended up facing a solitary ball vs spin.
The required run rate had climbed up to 14.25 by the time Axar walked in — it was 11.28 three overs earlier — and Delhi ended up losing the clash by 9 runs.
Match 52, Rajasthan Royals vs Sunrisers Hyderabad in Jaipur
Samson giving Kuldip Yadav the penultimate over ahead of death specialist Obed McCoy
What happened?
Here’s a simple summary of what happened: Rajasthan subbed-in a specialist death bowler to bowl at the death, but then ended up throwing the ball to a rookie Indian seamer in the penultimate over. Thereon, everything that could go wrong went wrong.
The ‘specialist’ in question here is Obed McCoy. The rookie, Kuldip Yadav.
With SRH needing 41 off 2 overs, it was a no-brainer for Samson to give the 19th over to McCoy, who’d bowled a fairly decent first over (0/13, which included a drop catch and an edge).
McCoy’s USP, mind you, is death bowling.
Samson, though, snubbed McCoy and threw the ball to young Kuldip, who was playing his third ever T20. SRH ended up taking 24 off Kuldip’s penultimate over, got back into the contest — which seemed all but dead — and ended up snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
Match 58, Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Lucknow Super Giants
Well, where do we start? You could explain one or two, but this was a game in which SRH accidentally took a couple of right decisions amidst a pool of blunders.
Blunder #1: SRH, ridiculously enough, ended up giving the wrong team sheet, meaning they fielded a ‘bowl first XI’ despite winning the toss and batting. This meant that T Natarajan was somehow present in their ‘bat first’ XI.
Blunder #2: They subbed-in Vivrant Sharma, A BATTING ALL-ROUNDER, for the second innings. And they ended up not using a single over of Vivrant.
Blunder #3: With LSG needing 69 off 5 overs, Markram threw the ball to Abhishek Sharma against a set Marcus Stoinis. Even if Stoinis got out, mind you, the next batter in was Nicholas Pooran. LSG ended up taking 31 off Abhishek’s over, and eventually went on to win the match.
This blunder, though, was a direct consequence of the impact sub blunder they made. Markram *had* to bowl one over of spin at the death because he only had four overs of pace up his sleeve. But then again this was Markram and SRH’s fault, for they wasted the impact sub by using it on a bowling all-rounder, when they could have instead subbed-in an Indian pacer (Nitish Reddy, for instance, was also part of the subs).
This tomfoolery might never get matched or surpassed in the IPL, or in any sport for that matter.
Match 64, Punjab Kings vs Delhi Capitals in Dharamshala
Shikhar Dhawan bowling Harpreet Brar over Arshdeep vs DC in the 20th over
What happened?
Second appearance in this list for Dhawan. This one, too, involves Harpreet Brar.
In the said match, Dhawan puzzlingly enough asked Brar to bowl both the 16th and the 18th over — despite a rampant Rilee Rossouw in the middle — but the left-arm spinner did really well, conceding just 16 off those 2 overs, leaking a solitary boundary.
But despite Brar doing a great job, logic dictated that Arshdeep should bowl the 20th over, with the left-arm pacer having two overs up his sleeve. Brar and Punjab had got out of jail twice but the odds of the same happening for a third time in a row were really low, especially with a left-hander in the middle.
Bafflingly enough, Dhawan, for reasons only he knows, threw the ball to Brar. Again.
This time, however, Rossouw wasn’t gonna let PBKS get away.
6 4 wd 6 wd 1 0 4 was what unfolded and DC ended up taking 23 off the final over. That pushed their total to 213 and well, directly ended up knocking the Kings out of IPL 2023.
Match 21, Lucknow Super Giants vs Punjab Kings in Lucknow
KL Rahul failing to bowl Ravi Bishnoi out in the second innings
What happened?
LSG were defending 160 on a sluggish wicket that assisted spin, but, on the night, Lucknow skipper KL Rahul kinda forgot that he had Ravi Bishnoi in his team.
Punjab were on the ropes at 75/4 after 11 overs and having already held Bishnoi back for a considerable duration, the situation presented Rahul with a perfect opportunity to bring the leggie into the attack and further squeeze the PBKS batters.
One over passed, two overs passed, three overs passed and amusingly enough, Rahul DID NOT bring Bishnoi into the attack. At all. Punjab, in these three overs, ended up amassing 33 runs, and had all of a sudden brought the equation down to 52 off 36 balls (with six wickets in hand).
It was only in the 15th over that Bishnoi was introduced, which meant that the young leggie was going to end the night not having bowled his full quota of overs on a spin-friendly wicket.
Every LSG fan’s worst nightmare came true as Punjab ended up getting over the line. To add insult to injury, Bishnoi turned out to be their second-best bowler, his figures reading 2.3-0-18-2.
Honourable mentions
> Nitish Rana (part-time off-spinner) opening the bowling against Jaiswal on a slow-ish Eden surface defending 150, when KKR already had three specialist spinners (plus Anukul Roy) in their XI.
> Rajasthan Royals subbing-in Abdul Basith vs RCB (at Chinnaswamy) with 10 needed off 2 balls. Considering Basith was subbed-in for his hitting, what was the reasoning behind sending him below Ashwin? RR could (and should) have subbed the 24-year-old when the game was still within their grasp.
> Punjab Kings sending in Sikandar Raza ahead of both Liam Livingstone and Jitesh Sharma chasing 258 vs Lucknow in Mohali. What’s the point in holding your biggest hitters back in a mammoth chase?
> DC sacrificing Rovman Powell vs Mumbai Indians by sending him in ahead of Axar Patel against Piyush Chawla. Powell, who had 11 dismissals and averaged 18 vs leg-spin in the 16 months prior to that game, was trapped LBW on his fourth ball.
> LSG sending an out-of-form Deepak Hooda at No.3, ahead of Stoinis and Pooran, chasing 228 vs GT in Ahmedabad after Mayers and QDK had got them off to a flyer (88/1 off 8.2 overs). Hooda scored 11 off 11 balls and killed the visitors’ momentum.
> Mumbai Indians opening with Nehal Wadhera in Qualifier 2. Considering Ishan was unavailable, a) they could have opened with Cam Green since the idea is to make him utilize the powerplay anyway, or b) opened with Vishnu Vinod, who has experience batting at the top of the order for Kerala. This way, they would have had an extra LHB in the middle-order and not thrown Wadhera to the wolves.
