IPL 2023 emotional rollercoaster: Alzarri’s snorters, Nortje gets cracking & a day of stationing a short leg

Two games, two Titan wins
Even before David Miller would hit the winning runs, Gujarat Titans’s dugout wore a festive look. With who else but Ashish Nehra cheerleading with his antics. Shubman Gill said something, clapping his hands, and that triggered Nehra into the Nehra mode: laughter, rapid talking, clapping … Beside him, Hardik Pandya too joined in before he had a look at the big screen and saw himself. He quietened down, so did others, and finally Nehra saw it too. Two games, two wins and the Gujarat model is yet again off to a winning start.
– Sriram Veera
 
Shortish outside off does Shaw in
“Once again that backfoot has done him in, it doesn’t move at all” Sunil Gavaskar’s assessment on Prithvi Shaw came as swiftly as Shaw’s dismissal was. It was a Shami shortish ball outside off, shaping away ever so slightly, and Shaw tried to fetch-pull it but ended up skying it tamely to mid-on. Gavaskar’s quick post-mortem was validated the replays. Shaw’s back foot didn’t go back and across or allowed for any weight transfer or swivelling. Shaw might have expected Shami to test with an nip-backer as that has been his nemesis for long now, but Shami went the other way. In an earlier over too he had attempted the shortish ball that moved away but offered too much width. This time it was closer and Shaw’s goose was cooked.
– Sriram Veera
 
Alzarri serves up a snorter
Alzarri Joseph served up a snorter at Rilee Rossouw that kicked up at his chest. A startled Rossouw stabbed at it so unconvincingly that it wasn’t a surprise that the ball lobbed towards backward point where Rahul Tewatia took a good lunging catch. A ball before David Warner dragged a ball angling across him on to the stumps. But the best was reserved for the last ball of the over. Unsurprisingly the pacy Joseph went for a cracking bouncer at Sarfaraz Khan, who has already been done in a Mark Wood short ball in the previous game. Sarfaraz again looked ungainly even as he went for a hook. Out of balance, out of time, it popped off his helmet on the leg side behind the stumps and Wriddhiman Saha was almost there rushing in for a lunging ‘catch’ though replays didn’t show any edge. That ball, though, would have the tongues wagging against Sarfaraz.
– Sriram Veera
 
Porel’s spunky upper cut
As soon as he upper cut Alzarri Joseph for a six over third man, Abhishek Porel would have known to watch out for the next ball. Joseph wasn’t going to go for any bluff or anything silly as he already possesses the best weapon possible: the hot spicy bouncer to the head. the time Porel began his downward bat swing, the ball had crashed right onto the helmet grill. The physio and team-mates rushed in, but Porel did his best to pull himself together and not betray any untoward emotion. Meanwhile, Joseph stood chatting and laughing with Shami. The helmet was changed and Porel continued to bat. He might have been nailed the bouncer, but the upper cut was spunky: he had lifted his front leg in the air and had gone for it. Next over, Yash Dayal tried a shortish ball to Porel; it was thrown back from deep midwicket stands.
– Sriram Veera
 
Saha’s splendid reflexes
Wriddhiman Saha is 38, would turn 39 later this year. Streaks of silver dot his sideburns and hair, but his elasticity seems un-ravaged time. A fiery Alzarri Joseph ball seared off Sarfaraz Khan’s helmet and ballooned in the air. Saha was unsure whether it had come off the bat or the helmet or some other part of the body. But he dashed off and leapt full-stretch. The ball just about evaded him. He was draught and punched the turf. Later, the replays showed there was no bat. But a flying Saha is quite a sight, arms stretched, torso parallel to the ground and arched like a reverse rainbow, legs apart in perfect synchronisation like the legs of a scissor. Poor Saha, an erratic Mohammad Shami kept testing his age and reflexes with the new ball, unable to control the swing and sliding down the ground. He almost took a leg-side blinder of David Warner, which evaded his glove a couple of inches. There were few glory moments to take from the day, but even at 38, Saha’s reflexes remain un-ravaged time.
– Sandip G
 
Rare and intimidating sight of a short leg
How often do you spot a short-leg fielder in a T20s? That too for fast-bowlers. A lot of variables have to align. The chief length of the bowler, which has to be short or short-of-length; the line, which has to be into the body, the nature of the pitch, which has to be on the bouncier side, and importantly, the pace of the bowler. You can’t station a short-leg if the bowler is peddling military-medium. But here, Alzarri Joseph was bowling as hostilely as some of his Antiguan predecessors. He was purchasing bounce, clocking high pace (an average of 144kph) and targeting the ribs and chests of batsmen. So Gujarat captain Hardik Pandya stationed a short-leg, though a little deeper than when a spinner bowls, for much of his four red-hot overs. The short-leg was hardly in the game, but the very sight was rare and intimidating.
– Sandip G
 
Now Nortje gets crackling
Once Gujarat Titans’ Alzarri Joseph had set up the pace menu for the night with his vicious bouncers, all eyes were on Delhi Capitals’s Anrich Nortje in the chase. He didn’t disappoint. First he knocked down Wriddhiman Saha with a cracking nipbacker that had the pace and the sharp movement to break through the defences. Then he took down Shubman Gill with a 148-kmph skidding screamer. Just a short while back, Gill had gestured toward the point fielder how the ball was skidding on this surface. Not that knowledge helped him against Nortje as the short-of-length skidder rushed at him so quickly that he couldn’t get his bat in line in time. Boom.
– Sriram Veera
 
Khaleel finds redemption
Hands on hips, blowing his cheeks, Khaleel Ahmed looked draught after Wriddhiman Saha smeared him for a six, the last ball of a 14-run first over. Looking down and shaking his head, he staggered to deep fine-leg and seemed content in his anonymity. He was taken off and then brought back in the fifth over. His misery dragged on, as Sai Sudharsan greeted him with a sumptuous flick. Ahmed stared pensively into the skies. But he came back strongly, bowling three straight dots and easing a single off the fifth. Then came his moment of benediction, the moment he seemed to be waiting for all through the night. He decided to bowl around the stumps at Hardik Pandya and produced a ripper that angled in and shaped away just enough to graze Pandya’s outside edge. It was the perfect length, line and degree of movement. Pandya stood confounded, but in the Delhi Capitals’ dugout coach Ricky Ponting was celebrating maniacally. Khaleel though was poised—he is more expressive in his moments of agony than joy.
– Sandip G
 
Float like a butterfly, sting yourself like a bee
It was a cute gesture from Mitch Marsh after being spanked for a four Vijay Shankar. Marsh had opted for a scrambled-ball, a shortish ball that sat up on a pitch where the ball has otherwise skidded – the wrong choice of delivery, no doubt- and Shankar biffed it easily to midwicket boundary. On his way back to top of his mark, Marsh had a word with his captain David Warner, and boxed his own head with his right f.
– Sriram Veera