Sun rise arc: anywhere between fine leg and long off – anti-clockwise.
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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.
– Sandeep Dwivedi
DK the finisher, doesn’t get started
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India value Dinesh Karthik so much as a specialist finisher that they have at times promoted Axar Patel to bat out the middle overs, and held the wicketkeeper-batsman back for the death. There was no Axar today, but did the thought of using the pretty competent Ravichandran Ashwin as a middle-overs shield cross their mind? It would have been a stiff ask nevertheless to send the off-spinner in to face some chin music from the South Africans. Instead, Karthik found himself in during the ninth over itself, with more than half the innings left. He is known to be stronger against pace than spin, and half the deliveries he faced were to be from Keshav Maharaj and Aiden Markram, of which he would manage to score just four singles. He chose the left-arm angle of Wayne Parnell to try and break free, but immediately holed out.
– Abhishek Purohit
The Surya cut: width out of thin air
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Suryakumar has wide-ranging set-ups for the cut shot. The open stance, an ability to remain motionless until the very last instance, and then explode with tremendous agility and whiplash bat-speed helps him cut even balls on middle and leg stump for four. He rarely gets across on the front foot, instead tapping it straight down the crease and rocking back to generate momentum, thus cutting down on the need for width from the bowler. Or he can whip the back leg across late to create space for the bat to come down upon tighter lines. To Keshav Maharaj, he remained dead-still till the ball arrived on middle and leg, and this time, he used his flexibility to arch back and slash it between the wicketkeeper and short third man for four.
– Abhishek Purohit
Hard lengths, Hard lengths!
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As soon as the ball was given to Lungi Ngidi to replace Wayne Parnell, Dale Steyn would remark on air that this pitch should suit him. It was the reason he replaced the left-arm wrist spinner Tabraiz Shamsie. It didn’t take him long to show why. Rohit would mis-time the first ball just over cover but didn’t take much lessons from it. He would soon charge out, backing away a touch, but Ngidi didn’t panic: he hit that hard length hard. And Rohit tried to swipe-pull it across but that shot was hardly going to work on this tennis-ball bounce pitch. The ball just lobbed on the leg side for Ngidi to complete the catch and beam a big smile. He wasn’t done. Another hit-the-decker arrived, this time outside off stump, and despite the presence of slips, KL Rahul thought he could play a tame steer to third man. Mistake. He just sent it straight to the slip to continue his poor performances against proper pace.
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– Sriram Veera
Testing times, false dawns
KL Rahul’s been a short, tentative presence in the middle so far in the T20 World Cup. Against South Africa, he actually held his bat behind the pad in Test-match opener fashion to let the first two balls of the match from Wayne Parnell zip past from a good length. The fourth ball, also good length, he tried to get some bat on to defend, but was beaten, as the over went on to be maiden.
In Parnell’s second over, Rahul finally decided to take on that good length, whipping the ball well enough for it to sail over deep midwicket. But it was to be a false dawn, as he soon so very tamely dabbed Lungi Ngidi with an angled bat-face to offer catching practice to slip in the fifth over.
–Abhishek Purohit
Nortje cup of tea
Much attention would be lavished on Lungi Ngidi’s first over, where he picked up two wickets, but Anrich Nortje’s first over was equally good even if wicket-less. The first ball, a cracking nip-backer, thudded through the bat-and-pad gap of Virat Kohli and flew over the stumps. Then, he produced a similar ball against Suryakumar Yadav and it was a clear case of ball hitting the bat, as it ran off the inner edge. Then off the last ball of the over, came the bouncer. Surya had seemed to anticipate it and shaped for his lap-pull but the ball was too fast, too bouncy, and too good for him to get any wood on leather. Shoaib Malik had asked if Surya would have the “big heart” to play that shot; it turned out he has, but on this track against red-hot Nortje, it would take more than heart. Or so it seems.
– Sriram Veera
Perth pulls Rohit down
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.
– Sandip G
Learnt nothing from captain
Virat Kohli didn’t learn from Rohit Sharma’s dismissal. He had hit two fours in Lungi Ngidi’s over but they were more conventional shots. As in, the first was a delightful on-the-up punch against a ball that bounced just right for that. The follow-up delivery was a full one on the legs, easily whipped through the onside. But the fifth ball was the fast bouncer. Rohit had already fallen to it in the previous over. Kohli went for the pull, weight still on the front foot, but it had leapt too quickly at him for him to control it. Unsurprisingly, it flew off the top edge to fine-leg where Kagiso Rabada, one of the fluent movers among pacers in the world cricket, ran across to his right to pouch a lovely catch, making it pretty easy.
– Sriram Veera
Thunderbolt comes snarling in
This was similar to the way Virat Kohli had fallen in India’s warm-up game against Australia too – failing to control a hook and being taken at fine leg. It is almost always difficult to control the shot, but on smaller Indian grounds, batsmen can often get away as top-edges sail over the boundary. Not in Australia, and certainly not in Brisbane and Perth with the large square boundaries. Against Australia, Kohli had tried to fetch Mitchell Starc’s bouncer a bit away from the body. Against South Africa, Lungi Ngidi’s short ball came snarling into him instead. He still went through with the shot, and fell to a sharp, running take by Kagiso Rabada on the edge of the fine-leg boundary.
– Abhishek Purohit
Low-rev & Hardik: perils of mindless counter-attack
Counterattacking isn’t bad; especially when your top order is gone, the pitch looks pretty spicy, and you don’t feel it’s going to relent anytime either. It’s obviously something Indian team has spoken about presumably, going by some of the shots attempted. Four of the five batsmen have fallen, going for their shots. They perhaps thought it needed someone to throw a punch or two back to see what happens. Two already fell, trying to do that: Rohit and Kohli. But Deepak Hooda, brought in to replace Axar Patel, also tried the same tactic.
It was the kicker from a length outside off stump. Hooda stayed beside the line, and threw his arms at it. He missed. Next ball, he succeeded in edging a similar delivery to the keeper. “The white ball is flying and it’s flying anywhere,” Ravi Shastri would boom shortly.
And so did Hardik Pandya. It was the chest-high bouncer from Lungi Ngidi and Pandya went for the pull off his third ball. Much like all the batsmen before, he couldn’t control it. It flew off the top edge and he still might have got away but for that man Kagiso Rabada. Off he charged and then threw in a dive to take a beauty. Pandya would stand there and wince. He might well “blame” the fielder but his shot too didn’t have much legs to stand on.
– Sriram Veera
How do you pronounce your name Nortje? Like Nokia-head-out
Around three Indian journalists separately went and asked South African pacer Anrich Nortje, how he pronounces this surname. Most of the world pronounces him as Nortje, however, when it came to pronunciation he said it’s N-O-K-I-A. Remember the famous phone company. “Everywhere I go, especially in the sub-continent they pronounce it wrongly but I have given up. I have to leave it to people to pronounce it whatever they like,” Nortje said with a big smile. Just say it quickly, like the South African pacer’s fastest ball of all time recently.
– Devendra Pandey
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.
– Sandeep Dwivedi
St Lungi and his charming menace
Lungi Ngidi gazed deeply into the Perth sky, like a philosopher searching for the deeper meanings of life. Here, though, he had bounced out the best of India’s batsmen and, in a sense, found profound meaning of the night. He then folded his hands, as a thanksgiving gesture, and smiled reluctantly before he was swarmed by his colleagues. On all four instances he picked up a wicket, his celebrations were muted. When he ejected Rohit Sharma, he just stopped in his follow through and mechanically threw the ball back to the umpire. He offered regular handshakes with his chums, as if nothing had happened. KL Rahul’s scalp was met with an apologetic smile. When he nailed Hardik Pandya with another short ball, he produced a sardonic smile. Of all the virtues that he demonstrated, level-headedness shone the brightest.
– Sandip G
Kamikaze approach lets SA hold back spin
Five of India’s top seven have played Test cricket, the other two have solid first-class records. The way four of them went out in kamikaze manner, it seemed they just did not want to give their defensive techniques any chance to hang around a little longer on the spicy Perth pitch. Many times, sides aggressively push for a higher score than par on a difficult wicket and end up way below par, when a more circumspect approach with the bat, which Pakistan regularly employ, may have given them a par total and an even chance for their bowlers to try and defend it.
\This Indian team under Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid has consciously taken more risks with the bat than before when setting a target – and that has indeed brought them appreciation if not the big results yet. But in these extreme conditions, sticking to that approach at all costs came out as little more than a futile statement of intent. It also allowed South Africa to hold the spinner back until India were down to the last specialist batting pair.
– Abhishek Purohit
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.
– Sandip G
Was Pant a better punt?
If counter-attacking was India’s plan, then why would they not have Rishabh Pant instead of Deepak Hooda? The variation of left-hander, the natural aggressive instincts; plus he doesn’t have to rev himself to counter-attack, for that’s his way. Did the bowling of Hooda, the off-spinner, push his case forward, which on this pitch does look a bit of a strange option. Hooda tried to counterattack and unsurprisingly fell, choosing the wrong shots for wrong balls. It’s not to say that Pant would have come off successful but he was a better punt. There he was sitting at the dug-out, with a white towel on his shoulder, and joking around with Kohli. On match eve, he had joked aloud at nets that he would bat for hours as he was not going to get a chance at the game.
– Sriram Veera
