Sunday, April 28, 2013

Can One Score Sitting in the Dugout?


This is the question, the match between CSK and KKR on 28/4/13 raises. KKR are chasing 200 runs, requiring 201 runs to win. Yet their most dangerous batsman, the pinch hitter, Yusuf Pathan, doesn't come to the batting crease till the fag end (to play 3 balls for 3 runs) when the match was virtually already over.

And this can't be dismissed as an idle talk. Yusuf had been opening for KKR in earlier matches, and had contributed 19 runs to the 26 scored of the first over of one such match. Argument that he wasn't in form as he had got out for duck in the last match won't hold either. If considered out of form, why was he in the team? There could be one argument that he had been getting out to pace bowling early in the innings, and hence not made to open this time. Agreed. But then why won't he be sent in at the fall of McCullum's wicket at 63 in 6 overs? That is if KKR were playing with an intention to win.

KKR had virtually lost the match when Kallis got out at 99 in 12.2 overs. Requiring 75 out of last 5 overs, they briefly came back into the game through 16th to 18th over to rattle the punters, before the preordained end. A cameo from Pathan could have altered the result to be in favour of KKR. Issue is not that it didn't come about, the issue is it wasn't given a chance. Surely one can't deliver just from being named in the eleven and can't score for the team sitting in the dug-out. 

The first CSK wicket fell just after completion and manipulation of the first 0-10 overs session.

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