IPL 2023: Shardul smacks it like Sachin; Kohli, Faf done in Narine, Varun spin and Suyash with his ‘main hoo na’ celebrations

Suyash, with the main-hoo-na tribute
Suyash Sharma, Kolkata Knight Riders’ 19-year-old mystery spinner, seems like someone who had wandered off into the cricket field from a Qawwali night at the Eden maidan. Flock of hair, girdled in a bandana, dangling down his shoulders, fresh-faced and quick hands, he looks like the understudy of the lead-man, then guy on the sarangi or dholak. He ambles in diagonally from a short run-up and then arches his body sideways, holds the ball beside his chest and winds up like a fast-bowler, an Imran Khan in super super slo-mo. His stock ball, like most leg-spinners, is the wrong’un that he releases with a vigorous flap of the wrs. A few times, he slipped in the standard leg-break, though without the bite of the wrong’un.
The nerves showed; he sometimes was too short and bowled a horrendous wide (a wide bouncer!). The leg-break, which he tossed up more lavishly in the air, nailed Dinesh Karthik, who attempted an ambitious drive but found himself not anywhere near the pitch of the ball. Anuj Rawat was his first wicket, the youngster sweeping a ball that reached slower than he had anticipated and spun a tad away. He packed up his memorable night with a third scalp, that of Karn Sharma, with another wrong’un. There is a bit of spunk about him too—he celebrated the wicket with a main-hoo-na tribute to Shah Rukh Khan, the team owner. Quite what the mystery about his bowling is, remained a mystery, maybe it would unfold as the tournament progresses, but there certainly is something about him.
– Sandip G
Siraj’s overcooked in-swinger

A memorable first victory of #TATAIPL 2023 at home.@KKRiders secure a clinical 81-run win over #RCB ⚡️⚡️
Scorecard – https://t.co/J6wVwbsfV2#TATAIPL | #KKRvRCB pic.twitter.com/0u57nKO57G
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 6, 2023
The first ball Mohammed Siraj bowled was a ripper. It veered inwardly to the right-handed Rahmanullah Gurbaz and then swung away, late and extravagantly, squaring up the opener from Afghanan. The second ball was identical, though without the zipping bounce of the first ball. Dinesh Karthik picked the first in level with his head and the second on one knee and one bounce. A satisfied smile on Siraj’s face. The stage was deliciously set up for his in-swinger. And in-swinger it turned out to be only that it landed on the edge of pitch on Gurbaz’s leg-side, swung further away, and flew past where a wide leg-slip would have been to the fence. The ball had slipped out of his palms, and it was so wide that Karthik did not even give a pretence of a dive. Siraj sheepishly apologised to his teammates, especially the unamused Virat Kohli, who threw a stink eye. Gurbaz, though, could not res a chuckle.
– Sandip G
Willey, the wobble-seamer
Two wobble seamers. Two wickets. David Willey justified his reputation as one of the finest exponents of the wobble-seam deliveries in white-ball cricket. The first of them swung into left-handed Venkatesh Iyer so massively that his bat was a few inches outside the off-stump and the stump crashed onto his leg-stump. Iyer’s eyes almost dropped off its socket. The second wobble-seamer was inch-perfect, a monument of subtlety. It landed on middle and off-stump, more good than full length and swung just a fraction to beat the weak poke of Mandeep Singh and cannoned onto the off-stump.
– Sandip G
Brace jolly well for Shardul’s Sachinesque sixes
Shardul Thakur heaved a brace of sixes off Michael Bracewell that whipped up memories of Sachin Tendulkar in his peak. The first of two was pure Tendulkar. He glided down the track, the bat swung over his head, then paused, stretched his arms and swung the off-break with the sweetest of bat-swing over long-on. For the next ball, Bracewell dropped his length back a bit, bowled it an inch wider, but Thakur’s swing still swung the ball over deep midwicket. Rushing down the track, he realised that he would not reach the pitch of the ball, but he did not panic or change his plan. He stopped, waited for the ball to reach him, sweet-spotted the ball beyond the ropes and struck a pose in the follow-through. If this IPL were an audition for the seam-bowling all-rounder’s spot, for the WTC and beyond, Thakur was winning it hands down.
– Sandip G

Faf’s flourishing finish
Of the three boundaries – two sixes and a four – he hit off Tim Southee in the 4th over, Faf du Plessis’s last one was spectacular. And almost Kevin Pietersen-ish. After being smashed for two boundaries, Southee had dragged this one slower but Faf had picked it early, waited, and almost helicoptered it up and over cow corner. The pause for the ball to arrive, and then the weight-transfer on the front foot and the flourishing finish reminded one of KP. Incidentally, his own admission, Faf fusses a lot on his technique: the front shoulder position, the hands spread on the handle – more gap between them than most others, how high he lifts his bat, how much he flexes his knee for spinners … everything is calibrated carefully. And then he says he lets his instinct to take over.
– Faf du Plessis
Done in the spin
When he has to attack the pacers, Virat Kohli does charge a lot more than he does to the spinners. He rushed out to lift Tim Southee to the straight boundary in the 4th over. But he doesn’t do it against the spinners, and often gets into trouble trying to stretch out for an expansive drive. Sunil Narine did a Mooen Ali, tossing the off break on a length outside off and Kohli lunged from his crease and tried to whip it with the turn to the on side. But in doing that, the bat-pad-gap had yawned open and the lovely off break found its way to the stumps.
Then it was the case of Faf du Plessis being done in another spinner. Varun Chakravarthy slipped in a wrong-un, sliding it in a little but Faf had gone after the width. Like Kohli, he lunged out and he tried to thrash it through the off but the slight inward-break meant it collided with the inside-edge and fell on the stumps. Two batsmen, done in the turn.
– Sriram Veera