IND vs SA 1st T20: ‘Surya woke up after he got hit!’
IND vs SA 1st T20: ‘Surya woke up after he got hit!’: “After getting hit, Suryakumar Yadav woke up!” Later, KL Rahul would say. Anrich Nortje’s opening punch was a ferocious body shot that slammed into Surya in the ribs.
The next ball was the jailbreak moment, but it could have been the wicket ball. Now on an off-stump guard, he attempted to swing a short-of-length kicker to the on the side, but was beaten by the combination of pace, line, and bounce.
Nortje could only laugh as the ball sailed beyond the third man after hitting the leading edge and going for six. Surya scooped up the next ball and hit it over deep backward square-leg boundary after Nortje smacked a yorker onto the pads.
Rabada had KL Rahul in his sights and picked off Rohit Sharma with a beautiful away-seamer before Surya came in. It was perfectly positioned on the off stump, luring Rohit into a forward defensive prod, but it seamed away late and was about to grab the lead.
There were three slips in play as Kohli played and missed, connected once with a daring heave against Rabada, and then edged a short and well outside-off ball from Nortje to the keeper.
Bavuma’s nightmarish run continues
It hasn’t gotten any better for Temba Bavuma yet. Though he leads his country’s Twenty20 team, no franchise in South Africa’s new domestic T20 league drafted him.
He felt “extremely upset and let down,” he said. When he was diving to get a run at the end of the previous over in the T20 match for South Africa, he hurt his elbow and was hit on the shoulder by a bouncer from Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
He had to quit the game due to pain and would not have been able to play for South Africa in England anyhow had he not been injured.
Players
Riley Rossouw and Reeza Hendricks, who were brought in as replacements for Quinton de Kock and were responsible for heaping pressure back on Bavuma, hammered runs at a rapid strike rate.
In order to create room for Bavuma’s comeback this series, they kept Rossouw and benched Hendricks.
South African media has already started talking about his form and strike rate, so he probably wanted to make a big comeback to silence the critics.
Bavuma appeared to be setting up for an off-target drive when he repositioned his bat face in an attempt to connect with the nipbacker.
And it’s not like de Kock did much better. For the umpteenth time in his career, he tried to go for the big slash but got an inside edge from Arshdeep Singh and dragged it on to his stumps.
In that case, which was the superior option? Who has a better inswinger, Arshdeep Singh or Chahar?
Although both were masterpieces, Deepak Chahar’s was part of a larger plan to dismiss Temba Bavuma, and Arshdeep’s would likely win if judged on its own.
To dismiss Bavuma, Chahar unleashed a tremendous inswinger that curled in from way outside off, but here’s the trouble with left-armer Arshdeep’s: The ball shaped away slightly as it left his hand, drawing in David Miller, who is left-handed.
Miller was completely taken aback by the sudden change in direction of the ball, and he was unable to get his bat in any sort of hitting position.
IPL
The Indian Premier League is a regular venue for Chahar to employ this tactic with his inswing. The ball is pushed outward and then bent back in. That is precisely what Arshdeep did.
What James Anderson does with his fingers at release to achieve inswing or outswing was best articulated by him once.
In any case, I’m considering the middle finger [upon release].
To get it to come in later, I’ll use my middle finger to push it wide of off stump with the inswinger. I use my index finger to press the ball into the stumps on the outswing so that it can swing away after making contact.
“Oi! So, Ashwin toss it up-ra! The last over is crucial; take a wicket! Kris Srikkanth begs Ashwin live on television.
Order
This is Dei Ashwin! It’s time to get the wickets in order: thooki podu-ra, vizhum da! “Dei, enda flat aa podurey!
Enjoyable was Krishnamachari Srikkanth’s last-ditch appeals to the television audience during Ashwin’s over on Star Sports.
We’ll start with the translation: “Aswhin, toss it up, you will get a wicket, oi! What gives with the flat bowling?”
Ashwin had given that innings a fresh start, scoring only 6 runs off of 3 brisk overs. Srikkanth complimented him on it before telling him to go get a wicket. Given Ashwin’s present lines, the batters, in his opinion, would not risk playing any huge shots. Of course not.
He persisted in trying to convince Ashwin of his error. “Dei! What, you don’t hear me?! Ashwin kept feeding Keshav Maharaj with rapid carrom balls, and Srikkanth had reason to be optimistic when left-hander Wayne Parnell came on strike in the final few overs.
But no, Ashwin was clumsy and hit the leg and middle line, and Parnell continued shooing them away.
Srikkanth didn’t hold back when his co-commentator asked him to explain why he feels Ashwin is bowling that way in this over. Playing again after a long hiatus, he likely values caution and frugality. And naturally he is making his comeback; I can appreciate his efforts to reclaim his former prominence.
Remarks
Just in that last over, I believed he could have gone for the wicket,” Srikkanth added.
That’s what Ashwin might have done in the last over,” Srikkanth chimed in after Axar Patel fooled Parnell into holing out at deep midwicket.
He then went on to recommend that India start all three spinners in their opening T20 World Cup match against Pakistan in Melbourne. What I’d do is play Axar, Ashwin, and Chahal. Bring in Hardik as your sixth bowler and third seamer.