MATCH STORIES
Follow UsAs far as IPL debuts go, hardly would have any bowler bowled a better spell. Hardly would have been anyone been as unlucky either. If it was not for three drops off Vidwath Kaverappa's bowling, Punjab Kings would have been all over Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) tonight - and the spell would have been remembered as one of the finest by a young pacer - EVERRR - in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Born and raised in the Coorg province of Karnataka, known as the "Cradle of Indian Hockey," Kaverappa has always been a multi-talented sportsman.
While cricket was always his first love, he was forced to take up numerous other sports, including basketball and football, due to the lack of infrastructure. But for cricket to become a reality, he had to move to Bengaluru to pursue the sport further.
“I always wanted to be a cricketer since my childhood. I was only playing other sports because there were no cricketing facilities in Coorg, apart from summer camps,” Vidwath Kaverappa told Cricket.com in an exclusive interview.
Under Jayaraj, a notable coach in the cricketing circuit here in Bengaluru, Kaverappa took off, with the then 23-year-old fulfilling his dream. Over the next two years, the Karnataka pacer went from strength to strength, with notable performances - both with red-ball and white-ball.
With the red ball, he rose to prominence, with 80 wickets in 20 first-class games, where he averaged just 20.08. But the rise didn’t stop there, with his display in the 2022/23 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT), where he picked up 18 wickets, the joint-most for any Karnataka bowler in their debut season.
Since Kaverappa's professional debut in March 2022, he was the only Indian seamer to average under 21.00 across all three formats (minimum of 20 wickets).
It ultimately led to Punjab Kings bidding for the Karnataka pacer at the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL) Auction for INR 20 lakhs. It took him almost two entire IPL seasons to finally make his first appearance, which came against the team from his home state - Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), on May 9 (Thursday).
If not for Ashutosh Sharma's drop, the right-arm pacer would have removed Virat Kohli on only his third delivery on debut. His misfortune didn’t stop there, with Rilee Roussow missing an opportunity to get rid of Faf du Plessis, too, on the last ball of his first over.
You could delay an opportunity but hardly deny it. In the second over, the Karnataka man struck to remove the on-song Faf du Plessis, bowling in the right corridor on a two-paced pitch. The right-arm pacer could have had Kohli yet again, but Roussow did a double with another drop.
However, Kaverappa came strong in his third over of the spell, removing Will Jacks with a well-disguised slower delivery. But come the sixth delivery, Harshal Patel dropped one of the easiest catches in this tournament, denying Kaverappa another wicket.
This season, there have been 55 instances of a bowler bowling more than three overs in the powerplay. Among them, Kaverappa's spell tonight saw the highest percentage of false shots being induced (61.1%). That tells you something.
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