AT the start of the final over, with India needing to defend 6 runs, Rohit Sharma would have an animated chat with the bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar. The UP pacer would do a mock-run-up to warm-up. The skipper would have one more chat. More arm-waving would follow. All set. Bhuvneshwar ran in to bowl to Wayne Parnell, who tried to get the strike back to Miller with a little on-side dab but the ball rolled off the pad to the off side. Parnell wanders for a run, Miller says don’t be suicidal’ get back. Next ball, a dab to the off, gets Miller on strike, needing 5 from 4. In the crowd, there were prayers, some sitting tensed. In the middle, more chat from Rohit. The short ball gamble arrived and Miller swivelled into a pull and it flew off the edge to fine-leg boundary. Rohit winced and held his head. Miller finishes off the next ball with a slice past point, roars, and punches gloves and hugs Parnell. Miller, the IPL hero, and now South Africa’ world-cup hero, He has allowed the countrymen to dream of that elusive ICC medal. He played a match winning 59 and South Africa flew to the top of the group with a 5 wicket win.
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Kohli drops the match
Out it popped from Virat Kohli’s palms. His weight going back, he had another lunge at it. It dropped into his palms again. But popped out again. And he fell to the ground in anguish. More of the same emotion was on the faces of Rohit Sharma and the bowler R Ashwin whose carrom ball had Aiden Markram swing towards deep midwicket. Ashwin couldn’t believe what he saw, throwing his arms as if to ask , ‘how did you drop that?’ Rohit would hunch and hold his head. And Kohli began to walk with a wry smile.
Dislodge bails or hit stumps
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After Kohli’s dropped-catch over, came Rohit’s missed runout over. Mohammed Shami bowled a heavy ball, David Miller didn’t have room to free his arms. He blocked the mean and sharp rising ball close to his pads. The call for the single was not clear, Aiden Markram wasn’t sure and slow to take off. Soon he gave up, as he was sure he was not going to reach the other end. Rohit now had a dilemma. Should he run to the stumps and dislodge the bails or opt for the safe underarm throw to hit the target. Maybe, it’s this dilemma that made him miss the opportunity. Had he just gone with the flow and thrown, he might have had a better chance. Rohit wanted to pull out his hair, and Kohli in the background was picture of disappointment. Kohli tapped Rohit on the back, they carried on.
The New Zulu: Ngidi from panic stricken to glorious attacker
South African pacer Lungi Ngidi once had a very scary Indian experience. Back in 2015, he was in India for a Universities World Cup. The games were in Dehradun and that saw the teams taking the busy narrow hilly roads on most days. On one such trip, on the foothills of the Himalayas, the young “Gentle Giant” had a panic attack. With a lot of honking around on the sinuous, vertiginous route with traffic jams, Lungi, not used to such noise back home, would suffer a panic attack and thought he was going to die. Those on the tour say the young boy was screaming and going crazy as he lay on the floor of the bus as he couldn’t take it anymore. Since then the tables have turned. His Test debut was against India at Centurion. And now at this very important World T20, he had the Indians on the hop. Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli the Big Three had fallen to the tall boy who speaks Zulu at home. Someone by the same name almost won a World Cup for South Africa, will this Zulu finally take South Africa all the way? A proper Protea.
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Sun rise arc: anywhere between fine leg and long off – anti-clockwise.
Late in his innings, Suryakumar Yadav hit a “tennis down the line forehand” off Kagiso Rabada that crossed the long-off boundary. It was very tough to pull off shot, something Surya wasn’t known to hit, back in the day. Gautam Gambhir has known Surya since the time he was one among the many batsmen that Mumbai produces annually. He was good, but not great. In 2014, Surya had joined KKR, the year Gambhir led them to the title. Manish Pandey was the flavour of that season. As for Surya he was a struggler. Before the game, Gambhir commented on the Surya of KKR days. Surya had a limited off-side play, he couldn’t hit over mid-off or point, he said. And it was only after he “trained out of his skin”, he became someone who can now hit anywhere between fine leg and long off – anti-clockwise. It was only in 2018, he realised that he needs to be smart in training and not go through the motions. Off-side play would become he would focus on. He would change his diet too. And with time, Surya became SKY, the batter with magical off-side strokes.
Perth pulls Rohit down
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Rohit Sharma lived and left by the pull. The stroke is his staple; the extra yard of pace and shade of bounce would not daunt him. He got off the blocks with a sumptuous pull. Kagiso Rabada had erred too much on the shorter side and Sharma, without even bothering to shift his weight onto the back-foot, swivelled and swung him over fine leg. Watching the imperiousness of the stroke, no bowler would dare to dig it short, or even short of length. But Lungi Ngidi did—he pushed the length a tad further up, in the shorter frequency of the hard-length band. Sharma shuffled slightly to the leg-side and unfurled the pull. But this time the ball was not as short, but faster and bouncier and zipped and ripped onto the bat-maker’s script and ballooned in the air for Ngidi to gulp up. A percentage shot it could be, but on a bouncy Perth surface, it was his undoing.
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Rabada: catcher in the fly
The Kagiso Rabada catch-counter would cruelly read thus: Caught 2; dropped one. The one he dropped was off his own bowling when Rohit Sharma check-drove him in the air and the ball deflected off his thumb. But he made quick amends, first with a well-judged catch of Virat Kohli, wherein he carefully maintained his balance when running alongside the boundary-line to complete the catch, side-on, which made his judgement of the flight all the more remarkable. The natural athleticism and cool head made it look simpler than it actually was. His athleticism and judgement shone more spectacularly when he charged and flung forward to pounce on a dipping catch from Hardik Pandya’s bat. Everything about the catch was smooth—from the take-off to the short sprint and the forward thrust.
