IPL 2016, GL vs KKR: Just what the Doctor ordered for Lions
It was the first T20 fixture at Green Park, also the venue’s maiden venture under lights. A green pitch had been laid out to mark the occasion and Suresh Raina, back from paternity leave, had no hesitation in bowling first after winning the toss. Early into the proceedings, however, Gujarat became one medium pacer short after Praveen Kumar injured himself, trying to take an overhead catch. The ball was moving in the air and off the deck, and the ‘home’ team needed a swing bowler to use the conditions to the best advantage. Dwayne Smith stood up to be counted.
Manish Pandey had scored a half-century in Kolkata’s last match against Royal Challengers Bangalore. Here he was done in by his tendency to play with an angled bat. The first ball he faced from Smith, he opened the face of the bat to run it down to point. The bowler extracted a little more outswing next up, and Pandey, once again with an open bat-face, helped it to Raina at slip. Piyush Chawla was a surprise choice at No. 4, given the seamer-friendly conditions. But from Gujarat’s point of view, Robin Uthappa was the danger man. The Kolkata opener had been timing the ball very well, but Smith made one bounce a bit more to get the outside edge to the ‘keeper. Chawla was the Barbadian’s third scalp, as he made one skid off the surface to uproot the middle stump. The dismissal put Chawla out of his misery.
He had been struggling to put bat on ball. Shakib Al Hasan was taken care of with a short delivery with debutant Eklavya Dwivedi taking the upper-cut at third man. Shakib and Yusuf Pathan had stitched an unbroken 134-run partnership for the fifth wicket in the first-leg encounter at Eden Gardens. Today, their association yielded six runs. More importantly, Smith finished with 4/8 in four overs to run away with the Man of the Match award. It was his career-best in T20s and only behind Anil Kumble’s 5/5 and Rohit Sharma’s 4/6 in all IPLs. The Apple CEO Tim Cook, sitting in the directors’ box, was seen applauding.
