All Shastri and Clarke could do was shake their heads as Sudharsan put on another of cricket’s more unusual shows for the second playoff in a row. The opener’s freakish end to his innings at Mullanpur in New Chandigarh hushed the stands and turned the tide of a lively pursuit of the Royals’ score.
Shock moment flips the mood in Mullanpur
Up until that point, there was some verve to how Gujarat were going about it. You had Shubman Gill and Sudharsan in no hurry, chipping away at any head of steam the Royals had mustered early on.
And then you have this. Gill is on his knees, can’t believe what he’s seeing as the bails come off. The kind of thing you don’t see often, made all the more strange by the fact we’ve seen it from him before. The noise in the ground just died down.
How the freak dismissal unfolded
We are in the 13th over of a 215 to have. Brijesh Sharma has a low full toss on the up outside off; Sudharsan opens up and tries to cut it behind square.
It’s going for four, but the bat lets go, comes back and smacks the stumps. That was the end of a fine 58 from 32, with a couple of sixes and eight fours in it.
What makes you double-take isn’t so much the stroke, but the timing of it. Most men will be lucky to be hit wicket once or twice in a long career. Sudharsan has done it in two straight playoff matches now.
A repeat of Qualifier 1 and the stunned commentary box
You only have to look at Qualifier 1. He did something like it to Royal Challengers Bengaluru, where an aggressive shot off Jacob Duffy saw the bat come off the pitch and into the stumps. In Mullanpur, it was even more direct: the bat came right on top of them.
In the booth, the pair were at a loss for words. Shastri had a laugh and said he must be at the nets working on it, since this time the contact was spot on. There was some mirth in the press box to match.
The chatter didn’t stop at the boundary either. Some fans were calling it the rarest of events to happen in two innings, with a few even saying it was his third in as many years.
Sudharsan’s own take on the grip issue
He wasn’t one to make excuses after the game. When I put it to him, he said he didn’t have a ready answer. ‘I think I should try some things. I am going to try some grip tech now and just bat few balls and see how it is,’ was his line.
He put it down to the bat bouncing in the other game, and here it was more immediate. For someone in such good touch, it was a candid look at a technical hiccup when the heat is on.
What it means for the chase
They had made life hard for Rajasthan before the incident. The opening pair had taken the sting out of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s earlier swing, which had been the basis of the 214 they put on the board after a wobble in the middle overs.
Losing Sudharsan didn’t change the complexion of the game. It gave the Royals a small window, but if anything, Gujarat were still the odds-on to get to the final with RCB on the other side.
If you look at the numbers, here is where both sides stand:
– RR got a lifeline, if a bit late in the day
– GT’s run of play was interrupted, not derailed
– A question mark over the grip that might need tending to
The bigger picture for Gujarat
Two of the same mistakes in back-to-back knockouts could have had the dugout in a tiff. Not with the Titans. They have been steady, with Gill holding it together and a good base already in place.
It’s more of a tactical story than a stat sheet. Rajasthan made a breakthrough, sure, but the work was largely done. The openers had set a tempo that made 215 seem within reach, even with a once-in-a-season type of wicket falling on their head twice in seven days.
