(Clockwise) MS Dhoni, Phil Salt and Lalit Yadav, Matheesha Pathirana, and David Warner. (PTI/AP) Inception and deception, starring MS
In his helicopter-shot whirling heyday, few batsmen used to guess a bowler’s designs in the death overs of a bowler other than MS Dhoni. His anticipation and smarts remain intact in the twilight of his career too. He reads the best intentions of the bowler. So on the third ball of Khaleel Ahmed’s 19th over, he hung back, expecting a short ball. And so it turned out to be, as he flayed the ball over the midwicket to the rapturous crowd. The next two balls, he would shuffle back and across, for he knew Khaleel would full and far, assuming that Dhoni would miss the ball. He missed the first swipe, it was too wide that it was deemed illegal. The next ball was similar and Dhoni threw his bat at it and managed a thick-edged four. The next two balls, he ditched the shuffle and did not premeditate because Khaleel, he knew, would bowl slower balls. And so he did, and Dhoni pummeled the last ball down the ground. He is producing the cricketing version of The Inception.
A prayer or a requiem?
After he gets a wicket, Matheesha Pathirana keeps his hand in the middle of the chest, shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. A fleeting reverie later, he opens his eyes and smiles beatifically. It could be a prayer, as he is a devout Buddhist and attended a Buddhist religious school, and his father Anura once told the Sunday Observer. “My son is a devoted Buddhist who attended Daham pasal in his childhood. As a family we observe Sil (eight-fold path of Buddha) and participate in most religious programs held in our village temple. I think religion helps to develop a person’s mind,” he said. It could be a requiem for the batsmen too after the piece of torture he had just subjected them. The ball that he nailed Manish Pandey was a ripper, torn straight off Lasith Malinga’s gospel of deception, the low-slung projective traveling wickedly, drifting in at extreme pace and then dipping to blast his pads. As the dismissed batsman stares back at him helplessly, Pathirana breaks into his prayer of requiem routine. So is it prayer or a requiem.
DO NOT MISS!
When @msdhoni cut loose! 💪 💪
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A slip and a save
The balls hustled to David Warner, prowling mid-off, twice. Both were crisp drives from Ruturaj Gaikwad. The first one breezed to his left, but as he stretched his hands to intervene the ball’s boundary-ward path, he slipped, as though someone tripped him. The ball dribbled off his body, the contact took the sting out of the ball, and Gaikwad could accrue a single. On the second instance, the ball was struck firmly and seemed like racing to the ropes, past the right side of Warner. The Delhi Capitals captain seemed he was late to pick the shot, but he made amends with a springy dive to cur the boundary. Though not the tallest, he has considerable reach, as though he is propelled by an invisible spring beneath his feet.
An unusual pull
Usually, when batsmen pull, they open up their stance and face the ball chest on. The front leg is moved back and towards the leg side, forming the base for the shot with the head slightly forward. But Devon Conway plays it differently, he does not unlock his body at all and stays side-on. Rather, he lifts his front leg, lets the ball come onto him, the backfoot moves not too much across but backwards, even as the bat makes a clean horizontal swing. The body is arching a bit and the head going slightly backward than forward. The temptation is to compare him with Brian Lara, who too used to play the pull in a similar fashion, but ostentatiously. Conway is more like the South African opener Herschelle Gibbs, an under-appreciated trailblazer. Conway employs the more conventional pull as well, but prefers the locked-body pull when he pulls the short-of-length balls.
A jet-plane called Lalit
Even before Lalit Yadav ambled in to bowl his off-break, you could speculate on Ajinkya Rahane stepping out. This has been his method, against the spinners as well as the pacer. Almost always, his nimble feet ensure that he reaches the pitch of the ball. In case he does not his pliant hands would take care of it. And so Rahane lilted down the track, reached the pitch of the ball and shoved it down the ground, flat and fast. All you saw next was Yadav diving full-stretch to pluck a one-handed blinder. True that spinners get more reaction time for caught and bowl, but Yadav had to make several adjustments in a split second. He had to judge the trajectory and dip, besides contending with the presence of the non-striker Shivam Dube, who was far away from the crease. But Yadav timed his swoop perfectly, stretching his wings like that of an airplane and landing smoothly to pinch the ball. The expressions of those around told the story. Shivam Dube looked stunned, Rahane stared disbelievingly at the skies and David Warner had his hands over his face.
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