IPL 2023: Prabhsimran goes ferocious, Samson cuts it smooth, Jurel starts in style and Ellis sends down his cross-seamers

Jurel checks in in style
When Dhruv Jurel strode into bat as an Impact Player, for his first IPL innings, the game seemed beyond Rajasthan Royals’ grasp. At that juncture, they required 74 off 30 balls. A few lusty blows from Shimron Hetmyer chopped down the target to 34 off 12 balls. All Jurel was expected to do was give the strike back to Hetmyer. He did not. Instead, he bludgeoned Arshdeep Singh down the ground for a four, before he screamed the next ball through extra cover for the most gorgeous of sixes with the most fluid of bat-swings. He was not finished. When Arshdeep reverted to over the stumps, he slouched and scooped him over the keeper’s head, reducing the target to 18 off seven balls. It required an impeccably accurate Sam Curran, channeling all his wisdom, to deny Rajasthan Royals an unseemly he, but Jurel has logged into the cricketing consciousness of IPL watchers.
– Sandip G
Shikhar’s leg-side clip
It’s perhaps the most non-descript stroke that Shikhar Dhawan unfurls, the leg-side clip, but a highly productive stroke for him across formats. All it takes is the bowler to stray a fraction into his legs, or even middle-stump. He quickly shuffles across, opens up his body and literally clips, rather than flick or whip, the ball through backward square-leg or even in front of the square. As he plays the shot, his entire body shifts towards the direction of the ball’s journey. Most Asian batsmen would look to use the wrs and whip the ball, but Dhawan seems to harness the angle rather flex his wrs. Perhaps, it is a Delhi opener thing. Gautam Gambhir was another effective clipper of the stroke, not the most aesthetically pleasing of shots, but a mighty effective one, as Dhawan would vouch.
– Sandip G

That’s that from Match 8. @PunjabKingsIPL win their second game on the trot as they beat #RR 5 runs.
Scorecard – https://t.co/Cmk3rElYKu #TATAIPL #RRvPBKS #IPL2023 pic.twitter.com/R9j1jFpt5C
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 5, 2023
Fretful to ferocious
Prabhsimran Singh was fretful in the early overs. But a six off the scraggly-bearded KM Asif, wherein he moved across and powered him over square-leg, changed his mood. Followed another all-muscle shot, a double-handed backhand of sorts off Asif in the next over, dancing down the surface. There is a bit of Navjot Singh Sidhu about his down-the-track sashays, in that no matter how much the bowler pulls the length back, he reaches there, and even if he does not reach, he will still go through with the shot, using his body as the second line of defence, like the former opener of twinkling toes who had put to sword the likes of Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan. Prabhsimran too is proficient against spin, as he demonstrated sweeping and lofting Ashwin (over extra-cover) for a brace of fours. that time, he had gone from fretful to ferocious.
– Sandip G
Like Jadeja’s catch of Border in ’92
There was a bit of Ajay Jadeja-Allan Border 1992 World Cup nostalgia in the pearler Jos Buttler grabbed to dismiss the rampaging Prabhsimran Singh. The latter had mis-sliced a cutter from Jason Holder that stopped at him. But he seemed to escape as the ball seemed to land in an unmanned territory, between mid-off and long-off. But Buttler charged in, covering 25-28 yards at breakneck pace, and flung forward. He swooped the ball when he was air-borne, but the beauty was in the landing, the smoothest you would ever see, one that could delight the finest of pilots around. The elbow did not crash into the ground, rather dropped and his hands hardly trembled in the impact of the elbow on turf. As a result, the ball did not pop out of his hands. The perfect landing technique, like a seasoned pilot. And it whipped up some 90s nostalgia.
– Sandip G
Ashwin spares Dhawan
In the 7th over, there was a bit of Ashwin-Dhawan drama. Ashwin ran in to bowl but held on to the ball even as Dhawan stepped out of the crease at the non-striker’s end. But Ashwin didn’t whip off the bails, just cast a look at his former Indian team-mate, who rushed back to the crease. Was it because Ashwin felt he had got his bowling arm past the perpendicular or he was in a kinder mood with a former team-mate?
– Sriram Veera

And Shikhar’s reverse-flick
First, Shikhar Dhawan made a mess of a reverse pull. Rather an attempt at it. Jason Holder, the beanpole Bajan, had pulled short and Dhawan quickly switched to a reverse-ramping mode to exploit the glaring expanse on the off-side. But he was beaten horribly. He, though, did not give up. The next ball was fuller, and Dhawan unfurled a reverse-flick of one leg. Quickly getting into the position, rolling his wrs to turn the face of the bat to the offside. As he had premeditated the shot a bit early, Holder fired the ball wide. It seemed out of reach, but Dhawan stretched on one leg, with immaculate balance, and still managed to get a sizeable chunk of the wood on the ball to clear the deep backward point ropes.
– Sandip G
Cuts like a butter knife, or Damien Martyn
There was barely any room to cut. Sanju Samson did not manufacture it either. The length was un-ideal for the shot as well. So was the line. None of these suggested that Samson would cut the ball behind point. But cut he did, the most non-violent cut off a spinner you would ever behold. The shot itself needs elaborate movements, but not for Sanju. Rahul Chahar’s wrong’un landed on good length, just outside the off-stump, and slid into him. Most batsmen would have bunted the ball for a single, or even defended. But Sanju just dropped a touch back, opened up his hands, took the ball from his off-stump or thereabout and cajoled it behind the point fielder to the fence, using his delicate hands and supple wrs to guide the ball through the gaps. Everything about him was still, except those hands, which he twirled clockwise to find the perfect placement, almost Damien Martyn-like in rendition.
– Sandip G
Ellis edges ahead with cross-seamers
The toss-up was between Kagiso Rabada and Nathan Ellis. The South African is one of deadliest all-format bowlers in the world; the Australian is a white-ball special with an assortment of variations that eventually earned him the nudge over Rabada. He justified the decision scything through Rajasthan’s vaunted batting firm, winkling out Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Devdutt Padikkal and Riyan Parag. The last two were foxed his cross-seam deliveries, of which he is a skilled operator. He starts with his usual grip—the seam running parallel to the fingers, but at the point of release you could spot that the seam is running horizontally across his fingers. The intrigue of the cross-seamer is its unpredictability. Sometimes it skids through, sometimes it stops, sometimes it moves into the right-hander or holds the line. The Padikkal one skidded and shaped a fraction away from him. The Parag ball held a bit and hence he mimed. Throughout his spell, his cross-seamers confounded Rajasthan’s batsmen, and how he reposed the faith of the team management.
– Sandip G