IPL Pulse: Clearing aisles and ditching the gloves
Good morning,
The news flash is that the 15-year-old wunderkind can make mistakes. And that RR can, in fact, lose games this season. All of that wrapped into today's edition of Cricbuzz Pulse, your two-minute scan of the IPL universe.
Last night in five lines
Two debutant pacers wreaked havoc in Hyderabad and ended RR's winning run.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi fell for a golden duck, dismissed by one of the debutants, Praful Hinge.
Chasing 217, RR crashed to 9/5, with Hinge taking four of those; three of them came in a dramatic first over!
Fellow debutant Sakib Hussain matched Hinge with a four-for of his own as SRH's call to leave out Jaydev Unadkat and Harshal Patel paid off.
It was captain Ishan Kishan's 44-ball 91 that took SRH to 216/6 on a slightly sticky surface.
Oh, that happened
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi walked back for a first-ball duck at a venue where bowlers usually come to disappear. What? How? Varun Aaron, SRH's pace bowling coach, revealed the backstory. Praful Hinge came in with a clear head: "I've gotten Vaibhav out before, I'm going to get him out today." He wanted to go around the wicket to the left-hander but Aaron nudged him to stay over. Hard length ball, angled across, and Sooryavanshi took the bait, pulled against the angle and was caught (as Boult, Bumrah, Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar perhaps exchanged texts in a secret Whatsapp group titled "We tried").
Pulse awards
The human-after-all award goes to Vaibhav Sooryavanshi for reminding us that 15-year-olds can, in fact, get out.
The clearing-the-aisle award goes to Praful and Sakib for picking up wickets in bulk and in a hurry.
The Thala-but-make-it-lite award goes to Ishan Kishan for ditching the gloves and instead captaining from the cover region.
The all-eggs-in-one-basket award goes to RR for collecting four ducks.
The no-chores-at-home award goes to Riyan Parag for keeping his bowling quiet at home and only showing it away.
Talking point
SRH's 200-plus scores are usually built on explosive starts from Travishek, who power them to around 77/1 in the Powerplay, but this time they found another way. After a quiet start of 18 off 19 and a Powerplay of 49 for 3, they still made 216, only the second time in this cycle they have crossed 200 without much from the openers. RR, in contrast, lost their usual cushion. They came in scoring at 14 an over in the Powerplay with just one wicket lost across four games, but an early collapse left their middle order with too much to do, and they could not recover once the top had fallen.
Who's saying what
Varun Aaron was thrilled with SRH's "complete win" that did not rely on contributions from the openers as is usually the case. His message to the two debutants was simple: "enjoy the game" or "I will be really angry."
Praful Hinge revealed that "last year, I had written somewhere that whenever I play my first match, I will definitely take four or five wickets."
Ishan Kishan reckoned his debutants were "hungry" and "motivated", which is why he backed them. He also explained "miscommunication with bowlers" as the reason for not taking the gloves and captaining from elsewhere.
Sakib Hussain gave "full credit" to Varun bhaiya, while Riyan Parag called the bowling from the debutants "beautiful". He felt there were a few "miscalculations" from RR and said he would take the loss as a "blip" and not overthink it.
Stat Snack
Praful Hinge's feat was the first time a bowler picked three wickets in the opening over of IPL match.
What's the latest gossip?
Birdies say fast bowlers across the country woke up to midnight trial invites after Praful and Sakib's success on debut. Word is that squad sizes could soon go up to 50, so teams can debut two quicks a game and make the most of beginners' luck just to survive this era of batters going hell for leather.
Tonight's watchlist
It's CSK vs KKR, two multiple-time champions who have looked a touch lost this season. KKR more so, with CSK finding a way to break their losing streak at home last game. Also, is there a case for Ayush Mhatre to open alongside Samson, and for Ruturaj Gaikwad to move down to No.3 like last season?
Reckless prediction for tonight's match
Varun Chakaravarthy to play, pick a four-wicket haul and drop a Tamil movie line at the post-match presentation.
In other news...
Rohit Sharma, who retired hurt in the last match, is set to undergo scans for a suspected hamstring injury whereas RR team manager Romi Bhinder has been served notice by BCCI for using phone in the dugout. Tim David was fined 25% of his match fee and handed one demerit point for disobeying the umps twice, when he inspected the replacement ball and even tossed it in the air... all while the umps kept asking for it back.
