IPL 2023, PBKS vs MI emotional rollercoaster: Tilak Varma the finisher, Matthew Short loves short stuff and unlucky Jofra Archer

Short loves the short stuff
Matthew Short loves to pull. Anything slightly short, and Short would stand tall on the crease and without shifting the weight onto his back-foot, he would pull with a disdain. He nervously survived the first three balls from Arshad Khan, and then the left-handed seamer went shot and Short quickly unleashed a fearsome pull in front of square. But Khan continued to gift him short balls. In the next over of Khan, he was so overeager to latch onto a short one that he ended up pulling much before the ball had arrived and ended up toe-ending it. Encouraged, Khan pounded another short ball, from around the stumps and angling in. Short just stood where he was and hefted Khan over the square-leg with the ease of swatting a fly. No one ever bothered to bowl another short ball at him, not even the skiddy Archer.
The wrong’un at the right time
Thrice Shikhar Dhawan leapt out of the crease to hit Piyush Chawla down the ground. All three times, he was successful. But the fourth time Dhawan attempted the ploy, Chawla exacted revenge. On this occasion, Chawla went slightly wider, and slowed the ball a bit. It was not lavishly tossed up, but still Dhawan misjudged the flight. Midway through the charge, Dhawan realised that he would not reach the pitch of the ball. He looked to shove the ball but ended up pushing the air, as the ball spun away and beat him. He was duly stumped. Dhawan gave an I-have-seen-it-all-before look. That’s the beauty of Chawla, batsmen know what he could do, yet often fall for his tricks. As Dhawan walked past him, Chawla casually smirked, the smirk of a supremely self-aware bowler.

Piyush Chawla gets the key breakthrough!
Shikhar Dhawan steps down, but is stumped Ishan Kishan.
Live – https://t.co/IPLsfnImuP #TATAIPL #PBKSvMI #IPL2023 pic.twitter.com/fd4blfWR11
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Unlucky Archer
It was not easy being Jofra Archer on Wednesday. Gradually grooving back to his peak pace, he was far from the hostile speed-machine that he could be. Nonetheless, he still troubled batsmen with his smarts and variations. Only that he was ridiculously unfortunate. After a four off a free-hit, he managed a top-edged off Jitesh Sharma but it eluded the fielder. A wide ball later, Sharma swung again and miscued a heave. Arshan Khan seemed to have covered the ground and gotten under the ball, but he misjudged the flight and ended up conceding a four. The last ball of the over, he foxed Sharma with a slow cutter, but it brushed his thigh and trickled to the ropes. Surprisingly, he mostly dealt with slower balls in his first three overs. One touched 152 kph, another 144kph, but the rest barely nudged 125kph. That was not all, he dropped a catch at short third-man and let a boundary burst through his palms.

An early wicket for Rishi Dhawan & @PunjabKingsIPL and it’s the big one of the opposition skipper!
Rohit Sharma departs in the first over.
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One over too many
Rishi Dhawan was un-hittable in his first two overs. He alternated between good length and full length, besides extracting marginal movement both ways. He pinched out Rohit Sharma in the first over and beat Ishan Kishan multiple times. The lines were stifling, just outside the off-stump when hitting the full length and on top of the off-stump with good-length balls. Consequently, his first two overs cost just three runs, and Shikhar Dhawan rewarded him with a third over. Everything went awry thereafter. The ball refused to swing; the line was no longer stifling, the lengths went off-kilter. Isban Kishan thumped his length balls for a couple of sixes and Cameron Green slapped him between backward point and third man. He ended up leaking 17 runs and handing the impetus to Mumbai’s batsmen.

That’s that from Match 46.@mipaltan reger a 6-wicket win against #PBKS to add to crucial points to their tally.#MI chase down the target in 18.5 overs.
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Varma, the finisher
Suddenly, Mumbai Indians’ dugout wore an anxious look—support staff chewing nails, Rohit Sharna gazing pensively into the dance, Cameron Green stroking his chin. Mumbai Indians had lost two of their set batsmen, Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan, in the space of an over, injecting hope for Punjab Kings. But Tilak Varma brought joy back to the Mumbai Indians dugout with a pair of humungous sixes off Arshdeep Singh, a pull and flick, and a scooped four, whittling down the required rate to 21 off 18 balls. There was a sense of effortless purpose about his stroke-making, a streak of nervelessness that has hallmarked his sudden spurt in age-group cricket. He had missed a slow bouncer the ball before the pulled-six, but when Arshdeep cranked up the pace, he quickly shuffled to the back-foot and pulled him sweetly. And fittingly, he wrapped up the chase with a thunderous six down the ground Arshdeep, a shot packed with both timing and power. Yadav and Kishan would walk away with the plaudits, but Varma’s 10-ball 26 not out too was influential in the context of the game.