Pat Cummins made an unremarkable first entrance at the Uppal Stadium on Friday. It’s possible that most of the 30,000 or so people who packed the arena two hours before play started weren’t there to catch a peek of him before the cricket match started. At least that’s not what their jerseys’ color and the brand behind them implied. Cries of CSK… CSK… echoed around the floor, overshadowing the on-brand orange bucket seats with a flood of yellow. As camera crews positioned themselves near the stairs that connect the dressing room to the ground, ready to capture another MS Dhoni montage, Cummins surreptitiously observed the pre-match activity on the SRH side.
Despite having the ball in hand, he made a somewhat theatrical entrance during the middle over. As a partnership between pace batter Ajinkya Rahane and mostly spinner Shivam Dube, who has started to take down pace as well, developed, SRH sought new ideas. In the tenth over, the SRH captain came on and attacked the left-hander with pace off the ball and from outside the stumps. During this time, the home team started to liberally deliver slower bouncers that gripped, paused, and annoyed the batters. Large square borders and a firm black soil surface provided the ideal conditions for SRH to carry out this variation time and time again. Jaydev Unadkat, a left-arm bowler, was introduced from the opposite end with a similar brief: strike the ball into the surface gently.
Batting coach Michael Hussey gave the order to be quicker in analyzing the conditions and communicating the information to the rest of the team after they were taken advantage of by cutters and slower ones in Vizag a week ago. When Rachin Ravindra swept Abhishek Sharma for a four in the third ball of the innings, he appeared to be hinting that the ball was skidding on and approaching faster. Once Ajinkya Rahane discovered it as well, he swiftly modified to begin timing his blows through the line. It helped CSK establish a strong foundation in the first half, but they were unable to overcome deliveries that were made at speeds of up to 120 kph, at times even slower.
A slower bouncer from Cummins undid Dube.
A slower bouncer from Cummins undid Dube. ©IPL
“All of the bowlers determined that when it was decided that each over would contain two bouncers, that was the point that… I have spoken with numerous bowlers, and they all agree that we must make use of it in some capacity. After the game, Unadkat observed, “Perhaps a faster player could use those pace-on bouncers, but slower bouncers these days are effective because all batters are attempting to hit the ball straight and to muscle it out of the ground.”
Due to SRH’s indulgence in these variations, Rahane’s fluidity and Dube’s performance were dulled. In the 14th over, Dube reached a score of 45 off 23 balls, but was dismissed by a wide slower bouncer from Cummins. Rahane was subsequently put out of his misery by Unadkat in the fifteenth over, as the CSK batsman smacked a ball travelling at 104.8 kph to backward point.
Even in the last overs, SRH continued to employ slower short balls unrelentingly, denying Daryl Mitchell and Ravindra Jadeja the opportunity to start and finish strongly. With the fields he created, Cummins demonstrated astute captaincy knowledge, putting his long on and long off much straighter against the New Zealander who loves to play down the ground. Despite 13 runs coming in just the 18th over, just 50 runs came off the final seven overs.
When Dhoni came out to bat at five down in the final over, the raucous CSK supporters who were pining for the Dhoni that dazzled Vizag with his six-hitting got a taste of what they had been waiting for. However, the enthusiastic applause did not last into the first ball he encountered, a short ball from Natarajan clocked at 127 kph that he tried to cut but failed to do so. The following ball was also slow and short, ending any chance of a spectacular cameo to a boring 1* off 2 balls. For the second time in the past six months, Cummins expertly analyzed the conditions at an Indian stadium and went on to silence a large crowd that was largely supporting his opponent.
