Southpaws stand tall in another run-fest

High-scoring games in which 400-plus runs are scored, with the matches going down the wire, have become commonplace in IPL 2024 and it was no surprise that the Delhi Capitals vs Gujarat Titans clash at the Arun Jaitley Stadium adhered to the trend. The game on Wednesday was the 10th instance of a 400-plus aggregate in this edition of the tournament. And in this match, the left-handers from both teams turned out to be the primary source of entertainment.

The spin takedown

Axar Patel had come in at No.3 for only the second time in 108 innings in the IPL. A scoring rate of seven an over at the end of seven overs wasn’t the brightest of starts for DC, who had already lost three wickets inside the powerplay. Axar struck just one four in the first 11 balls he faced and managed only 9 runs off his first 15 balls. His promotion didn’t seem logical at that point but the meaning behind it unfolded as the innings progressed.

Axar’s innings lasted until the end of the 17th over, by which time he faced 43 deliveries. Of those, 25 were from the Afghanistan spin duo of Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad as Axar expertly negated their threat and ensured quick runs too. Rishabh Pant was scoring off them as well, getting 24 off 17 – with two fours and a six off the wrist spin pair. But Axar’s role in their takedown was more prominent as he took 46 runs off them in 25 deliveries and contributed 62 off only 36 in the 113-run fourth wicket stand with Pant.

“My role was to take on the spinners. The talk with Rishabh was that we should take the partnership as deep as possible and aim for a good finish. It was a sticky wicket, some balls were skidding and some were slow,” said Axar in his chat with the broadcasters during the innings break. “The mindset is very important, you can’t think about playing off a bowler, and attack another. The approach was to attack if it was in our area, if not then take the singles and twos and rotate the strike. We kept an attacking mindset.”

The death overs marauding

Axar also felt 170-180 would have been a good score when the fourth wicket pair went about building a platform for the team. But it became 224 thanks to a special innings from Pant which in turn led to a few ignominious records for Mohit Sharma.

At the end of the 15th over, Pant had scored 34 off 26 but had sized up Mohit by then, having struck a couple of boundaries off him in the 12th. In the 16th over, Pant whacked two sixes off the pacer. His fifty also came in Mohit’s over when he struck his third six off him.

But the maximum damage was done in the last over as the DC skipper thumped four sixes and a four off Mohit who ended up with 0-73, the most expensive figures in the IPL. Mohit gave away 31 in the 20th over, the joint third-most expensive final over and it was also the seventh time that Mohit went for 50-plus runs in an IPL game, most by a bowler.

More than 70 percent of the runs scored by Pant in his innings came off Mohit. Nearly 85 percent of the runs conceded by Mohit came off Pant’s bat.

Most runs for a batter against a bowler in an IPL innings

Left-wary GT left weary

Towards the end stage of the first innings, there was also a matchup-based calculation that went awry for the Titans. R Sai Kishore, who bagged four wickets in their last game, wasn’t brought on to bowl for the first 18 overs. With two left-handers in the middle for more than 11 overs, GT felt it wouldn’t be an ideal matchup using the left-arm finger spinner. He was, however, brought on for the 19th over, and that too when the right-handed Tristan Stubbs would first take strike.

But the move backfired spectacularly. Sai Kishore was clubbed for two sixes and two fours by Stubbs before Pant unleashed mayhem in the final over. They finished with an unbroken 67-run stand in just 18 deliveries. Their run-rate of 22.33 made it the third best scoring rate for a fifty-plus stand in the IPL.

Most runs scored by a team in the last two overs in the IPL

“You have to put yourself in the shoes of the captain and the coach, and how they’ll be thinking,” said Sai Kishore who tried to defend the team’s predisposition to matchups. “If I was leading the side and if there was some other spinner or some other bowler whom you feel there could be an extra chance for scoring, maybe you’ll be slightly hesitant (to use the bowler).”

Has too much been made of matchups? “It’s a very dicey question,” replied Sai Kishore. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work. It also depends on the ground dimensions. Say we are playing on a slightly slower wicket with bigger boundaries. Last game (against Punjab Kings) I bowled the 19th over with two lefties… I really felt it was not a thing to be worried about. Ashish Nehra is big on having no egos in the side. And every call is taken for the team’s success and as a player you should also be able to take it.”

GT’s left-handed fighters

It was also the left-handed ensemble that got Gujarat Titans within striking distance of DC’s total, only to fall short off the final ball. The two fours and the six that Rashid scored off Mukesh Kumar in the last over brought it down to 5. But before that, Sai Kishore hit two maximums off Rasikh Salam in the 19th to keep them in the hunt. Speaking of, David Miller’s 23-ball 55 was crucial in the Titans still having a chance. And much earlier, it was Sai Sudharsan’s 39-ball 65 that kept them going in the chase.

Kuldeep Yadav’s spell (2 for 29 off 4 overs), Axar’s 1-28 to go with three catches, Pant’s sharp takes behind the stumps – DC had the left-handedness going in their second innings too. And at the end of it, they left GT behind them on the points table.