Lakshmipathy Balaji
It is not often that one would see the last over of the match swinging the fortunes of a team! It is not often would we witness a last ball six which will seal the match for a depleted side which had lost the last 3 matches convincingly and it is not often that a good bowler in the last match was trusted upon to bowl the last over goes for 23 runs to be the villain for the loss. Yes, it was witnessed last night on how a bowler should not bowl a last over (4 full tosses and 1 short ball) and clutch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Every Indian would remember the moment when Miandad hit Chetan Sharma over the deep square leg to clinch a last ball victory for Pakistan in Sharjah. History repeated itself on 22nd May when Balaji was hit in the same region by Rayudu to help Mumbai qualify as the 3rd place team and ensure that they face the psychologically hit KKR in the “Eliminator”. When Kapil was interviewed on what he said Chetan on the field for the last ball, he was quoted saying don’t bowl a full toss on leg stump! But as the history says, it was exactly the ball Chetan Sharma bowled and was hit was six to snatch defeat! Iam sure Gambhir would have ideally wanted Balaji to bowl a ball slightly wide outside off stump to make the batsmen to take 2 runs which would have resulted in a victory margin of 1 run and would have given KKR a chance a bite for the place in the final with 2 chances. 3 runs would have resulted in a “super over” which has not happened yet in this edition. But Balaji, in trying to bowl a leg stump Yorker was pummeled over mid – wicket!
The batting approach of Mumbai was far from a planned one as they sent in Bhajji at No: 3 to take the role of pinch hitter, a rare phenomenon in T20 where every player more or less plays like a pinch hitter! The result was not the one Mumbai would have ideally wanted as he scored just 30 runs of 29 balls. James Franklin emerged as the hero of the batting list with an unbeaten 45 of 23balls (ideally the score which Bhajji should have hit). As a result of just the one over KKR ended up in 4th place and have to face Mumbai again at their venue.
Gambhir would like to cease the moment and give KKR the much needed final berth in the IPL 2011 (as they are the only team out of the 4 to have not featured in the finals till now) and take it from there! Let’s hope KKR does this on 28th May!
Tags: 28th May, Clutch Defeat, Final, IPL, IPL 2011, IPL 4, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Pinch Hitter, Villain
