IPL 2023: Virat Kohli and charge of the young brigade

Gulf News

It was the charge of the young brigade in the first week of IPL 2023. Rituraj Gaikwad, 26,  lit the fuse on the opening day for the Chennai Super Kings with a stroke-filled 92, but the Gujarat Titans hit back through another youngster. Shubman Gill, 23, continued his scoring ways to set up the champions’ defence of their title.   It was Yashaswi Jaiswal’s turn on Sunday when he put the Sunrisers Hyderabad’s attack to the sword to pave the way for the Rajasthan Royals’ big win. Jaiswal, 21, is a precocious talent who hasn’t reached his full potential. It could happen this year.   Tilak Varma, 20, had served notice of his talent last year, but the Mumbai Indians didn’t persist with him. His 46-ball 86 against the Royal Challengers Bangalore should persuade skipper Rohit Sharma to make him a permanent fixture this season. For, none of the other Mumbai batters could make an impression.   That mattered little since Bangalore easily chased Mumbai’s target, with former captain Virat Kohli showing the way with a well-crafted unbeaten  (49 balls). King Kohli is back as he extended his international form into IPL Season 16. The RCB will also take heart from skipper Faf du Plessis’s 43-ball 73 as they chase their maiden title.   Rajasthan would be pleased to see Jos Buttler pick from where he left off last year when he became the top scorer. Sanju Samson played a responsible knock befitting a captain as Rajasthan look to regain the title.   The bowling honours belonged to Mark Wood. The Englishman nearly clocked 150kmph to return a five-wicket haul in his IPL debut as the Lucknow Super Giants routed the Delhi Capitals.   There’s more in our wrap from last week’s games and the preview for this week. Check out our video chat.   See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #cricket #IPL2023

Transcript

00:00Match number five, we saw Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis power Royal Challengers Bangalore

00:06to a huge eight-wicket win over Mumbai Indians. Kohli was in superb form. He scored 82, not out.

00:12Faf was also swinging away. He got, I think, 73.

00:16Shyam, that was vintage Kohli, wasn't it?

00:19Absolutely.

00:20The king is back, eh?

00:21Hello, and welcome to our weekly IPL catch-up show. Today, we are joined by the golf news duo

00:31Shyam and Satish, superfan Pradeep Dal, and we're delighted to once again welcome back UAE

00:37national team batsman CP Rizwan. How's everyone doing, guys?

00:42Good. Thank you, everyone.

00:45Good. Good to have you all on again.

00:48Okay, we've already had five matches of the new IPL season, and there's already been some

00:53surprising results. In match one, the reigning champions, Gujarat Titans, began the defence

00:59with a five-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings. Rudraj Gaikwad had a good game. Shubhban Gill

01:06did also quite well for the sides in that opening match. But Satish, what went wrong with your team?

01:13I think the final end was not perfect, because at 124 in 11 overs, with about two wickets down,

01:23I would expect somewhere past the 200 mark, because easily you can score about 12 in the last

01:29seven, eight overs. That means you're looking at 96 runs in the last 12 overs. I would say a minimum.

01:36Because the 200-percent strike rate is probably the minimum you could expect in the last

01:39five to eight overs. But that's where I think two things happened. Gujarat bowling bowled very well.

01:46The bowlers bowled really well. They came back strong. And I would say that day, Shivam Dubey

01:52didn't try to play a very smart cricket. Unfortunately, he was trying to hit it hard,

01:57and he was probably less than runnable at that point in time, which actually hampered the momentum

02:03at that point in time, which actually hampered the momentum of the others. So it had a knock-on effect.

02:10And I think Chennai were about at least 15 to 20 runs short of the target, which would have been a

02:15big thing when they were defending it later on.

02:20Rizwan, Gujarat, it was a brilliant display by the champions. It was like they were saying,

02:27we're the champions. And it's going to take something really special to beat us.

02:32How impressed were you by them?

02:35Yeah, definitely. They made a strong statement. Chasing the match down, first match of the tournament.

02:43And a lot of notable performance in that match. Hrithraj, Gekwad, putting up a show.

02:52Brilliant stroke play. He's always very easy to watch. Some of the shots he played were very beautiful.

03:00That's why he's one of the highly-rated batsmen in India at the moment. We just need to convert those

03:07performances to India. The lesser opportunities he had, good, I would say. But having said that,

03:14overall, in the context of the game, if he had played a little more overs, it would have been better.

03:22Because always, if you have a set batsman playing the death overs, it's always very important.

03:28Rather than a new batsman coming in and playing a couple of balls to get going.

03:32Coming back to the chase, Shubman Gill, the way he started, he gave a solid platform for the team.

03:42He would have been sad that he couldn't get going and finish up the game. But having said that,

03:50they have enough batting to cover up India's all-rounder Vijay. Vijay Shankar. He would have

04:02been slightly sad that he couldn't win the match because he was a set batsman at that point of time.

04:08And we have seen that Tewatia was struggling initially. He was not getting any boundaries.

04:16It had to be the firepower of Afghan Rashid Khan who turned the tide in their favour in the end.

04:23Otherwise, it would have been even tougher for Gujarat. But they would definitely take that win

04:30and take forward India to the tournament.

04:34Okay, in match two, Punjab beat Kolkata by seven runs. Harshdeep Singh did quite well in that game.

04:40But Shyam, how annoying was it that the match was affected by the rain? We had several lengthy

04:47rain disruptions and delays. Do you think the focus of the players was affected?

04:53I wouldn't say so because in any case, Kolkata were pretty much out of the game by then.

05:00Okay, it's annoying to see a match being abandoned early in the sense that rain

05:05disruptions are always unwelcome. But in this case, I think as it is, Kolkata were behind in

05:11the Duckworth-Lewis turn or run rate. And I didn't think at any point they could have overhauled the

05:18Punjab Kings total. So, it didn't really matter. Yeah, it didn't really matter. Okay, in match

05:23number three, we're just going to quickly go through the matches so far. It was England's

05:27Mark Wood who was the star of the show. He bagged five wickets as Lucknow. They thrashed Delhi.

05:34Let's bring Pradeep in. He's patiently waiting. Pradeep, Wood was bowling close to 150 kilometers

05:40an hour. I mean, that was absolutely superb. He literally blew Delhi away. How impressed

05:45were you with his five-wicket spell? Well, Wood has always been, if you see for his

05:52national side as well, he's always been clocking those numbers on a very consistent level.

05:58And another thing that's kind of emerging now and more so far in this season in IPL and a couple

06:04of seasons before, the quicks are really making their run counted. In the sense,

06:11you see an Umran Malik who's also clocking close to 150. You would see a couple of seasons

06:18before Nokia of South Africa also at a similar level. So, these guys are really, really

06:25becoming very difficult to play. Look at yesterday's match also. I mean,

06:32the quicks now are really kind of making an impact, I would say, in this tournament.

06:40Yeah, for sure. And they'll continue to do so. Okay, in match number four, it was another Englishman

06:45who caught the eye. This time it was the explosive Josh Butler who helped Rajasthan

06:50beat Hyderabad. He scored 54. Skipper Sanju Sampson also got a half century. Rizwan,

06:57you're a batsman. You would have appreciated those two performances by those two players.

07:02How good were they both? Yeah, I mean, they're world-class players. They could blast any of

07:09their bowlers on their respective day and they showed why they are rated so high. And they

07:17made a huge score in the context of the game. I mean, scoring 200 plus and the other team getting

07:23all out merely with less runs. So, that showed their impact. You know, as I told in the pre-show

07:32before the IPL that they are the force to be reckoned with. And they said or they

07:39recommended that statement because they are a force to be reckoned with. They have covered all

07:43bases, batting, bowling, fielding. They have also top-class fielders and that's a huge statement.

07:50There are things to see in the coming tournament, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Things to see, for sure.

07:57Okay, and in the last match played, match number five, sorry, the late one yesterday.

08:01Match number five, we saw Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis power Royal Challengers Bangalore

08:08to a huge eight-wicket win over Mumbai Indians. Kohli was in superb form. He scored 82, not out.

08:14Faf was also swinging away. He got, I think, 73. Shyam, that was vintage Kohli, wasn't it?

08:22The king is back, right? Absolutely, I pretty much agree there. The thing is, this is Kohli

08:28at his best. I mean, he is the guy who could anchor the innings and towards the end he can

08:32fire away and that's precisely what we saw yesterday. And Bangalore were in complete

08:37control of the match and at no point did they look like losing their way at all.

08:42So, that was vintage Kohli. Pradeep, the five-time winners Mumbai, they looked clueless yesterday.

08:47That was a very heavy defeat. What happened to them yesterday? In fact, you know, there are a couple

08:52of things which probably stood out. One of them was that they were really missing Bumrah. They were

08:59seriously missing Bumrah. Geoffrey Archer, people had very high expectations from him. But, you know,

09:06he was nowhere near his prime in the sense like he was clocking 130s, early 40s and that's about

09:14it. So, there wasn't that speed in terms of when he's been consistently clocking 150 plus and so

09:24on. So, they really were missing Bumrah. That's one. And secondly, I don't know, somehow even

09:32Rohit was not at his prime. He was probably either, you know, apparently there was a speculation a

09:40couple of days ago that he didn't go for the captain's meet in Ahmedabad. The reasons were

09:45not known. Is he well? Is he that's what the trade, you know, the papers were reporting.

09:51So, I guess and he himself Rohit said at the end of the match, you know, that we really need to

09:59kind of look inwards at our bowling and we really need to improve that part. So, they have

10:07to do a lot of things. Even Shane Bond, their bowling coach himself was quite frustrated.

10:12And he said, why does this happen to us? Apparently, they have a not so great record.

10:18Their inaugural matches, most of them they've lost.

10:22Mumbai. Yeah, I mean, it's been the same case with them for the last couple of

10:26seasons. They've been pretty bad and but traditionally also they've been slow starters,

10:31but they are hoping to come back. But I seriously don't see they have the

10:35enough arsenal to make a strong statement. I mean, I would, considering what we saw yesterday

10:43and what, you know, some of the others have been talking about, yeah, probably that's the case.

10:51Okay, that brings us up to date with the first five matches. Pradeep,

10:54which team's performances have you been most surprised with or most impressed with?

10:58And which player has caught your eye so far?

11:01Well, you know, one player I kind of… Yesterday's match, Tilak, the Mumbai Indian batter.

11:12I think he played really, really well. He was like, you know, it was like the entire Mumbai

11:18Indian team was playing on another wicket and he was playing on another wicket in another place.

11:23And it was unbelievable. You should have seen, I mean, I kind of saw almost all his,

11:30you know, innings and he was like really going well. He was really going well. So he was one

11:36that really stood out. In fact, another, even in yesterday's bowling, you know, particularly kind

11:43of picking up the Indian bowlers and batters, Siraj. If you see his first three overs,

11:52it was unbelievable. I mean, he did not even in those three overs, he did not give one loose ball.

11:59Every single ball was on length. And I believe he probably had given what, three or five

12:05runs. Yeah, five runs in those three overs. So he also did a remarkable job.

12:11Yeah, going forwards is going to be many, many standout performances. Okay,

12:14let's quickly turn our attentions to the, to the impact player rule. I'm sure we're

12:18going to be talking about this a lot as the season progresses. Goodright captain Hardik

12:24Pandya has already said that the new rule makes his job very difficult because he's saying

12:28basically there's too many options available for him now during the matches. Now, Shyam,

12:32with that said, which IPL captain do you think is going to be able to make the most use and be

12:38the most innovative when it comes to using this new rule? It's difficult to say Imran,

12:44simply because this is a new rule and people are still feeling their way through. Because if you

12:48look at the last few matches so far, there's been nothing so, I mean, none of the impact players

12:56have really made an impact. Like some of them have been very, turned out to be damn skips really.

13:02So it'll take a while for them to constructively use this. One of the problems I read that's the,

13:09where the Chennai coach, not the Chennai coach, the Bangalore coach Mike Henson said that

13:16part of the reasons is the team, the captains go for the toss with two teams, like, and normally

13:23the teams, team lists are exchanged before the toss. Now what happens is the team lists are

13:28exchanged after the toss. So you have the captains with two teams, like one, if when you're

13:33batting first, one you're bowling first. So that takes away a bit of the surprise element or the,

13:40or the use of the substitute or the impact player. I mean, impact player should be like an ace,

13:46like when you have all your options gone, you throw that in. So here with already, you have

13:52made up your mind with your, after the toss, okay, you're going to bat first. So this is the player

13:56I'm going to have. So you already have that, the players in place. So the impact player at that

14:02point to take makes much less impact than what it would have actually been. So I think maybe it'll

14:08take, I think by the end of the season, you would know how, I mean, how well or how good this impact

14:14role has been. Yeah. I think as the season progresses, we're going to see a lot of teams

14:20either using it really well or detrimentally depending on the situation. But at the moment

14:25let's talk about something else that there's been lots of injuries leading up to the new season.

14:30And now the latest player is Kane Williamson, who's been ruled out for the entire season now

14:34for the IPL. Rizwan, how do you think Gujarat are going to do now with losing such a player

14:42like Kane Williamson? Is it going to affect their chances this season? Yeah, I think so because he

14:48has been in the form of his life. He has been scoring runs all through the year for New Zealand.

14:55And obviously he's one of the main batters for them. And he has been playing IPL for a long time

15:03with this experience. He would have been great, I said. But I think they still have their firepower

15:08with them, you know, to make it up for him. But I'm sure they'll find a way and come back

15:16a solution for this. And with their strength, they have the likes of Rashid Khan, you know,

15:23even he has been highly said by Fahadu Pandya after the match that he's an asset for a team.

15:30Like, he'll get you wickets, he'll bowl economic spells and hit some sixes in the end when it's

15:35required. So, I mean, they are in good space. I'm sure they'll find a way. Yeah, it's going to be

15:42a big loss, Williamson. But as Rizwan says, there's plenty of batting and quality to come

15:47to cover for the team. OK, let's have a quick preview of match number six, which is tonight

15:51at six. It's Chennai Super Kings facing Lucknow Super Giants. Satish, your boys need to get back

15:58to winning ways after that losing the season opener. But with England's Mark Wood in hot

16:04form right now for Lucknow, this is going to be a tough game, isn't it? Yes. I wouldn't say

16:11really a tough game because of the simple reason that Chennai batting is quite a strong run. That

16:17way, I wouldn't be worried about Wood, per se. Because, yes, you can have come back and bowl

16:24those spells of 140-150 at one point of time. But last year, the same thing happened. When

16:28Umar Ayan Akmal was teaming in at 140-150, he was probably the… He gave away so many runs at

16:35Rituraj and even at Conway, they were hitting him with comfort. So, I wouldn't be worried about

16:43Wood. But yes, in fact, I think they are playing in Chennai after a couple of seasons. So, it'll

16:49be a big boost of playing in Chennai because Chennai is a den. So, not many people have

16:55managed to beat Chennai in Chennai. So, I would say it's not going to be easy because the wicket

17:00will be slower. It won't be quicker. So, the spinner should be playing a bigger role in today's

17:07game. And having said that, I would say more importantly, it's the Lucknow batting that might

17:15cause them the worry than Chennai's batting. Because even last game, if you look at after

17:20such a phenomenal start, after dropping a catch and coming back into the game, I think they could

17:26have scored much more. But I think Lucknow's batting looks a bit suspect to me. And with

17:32Chennai's spinners coming in, bowling well, I'm sure Chennai has got a good variety of spinners

17:38as well. So, I would say, it's not a worry. I would still go and back my team, Chennai.

17:44And having said that, another point to add. Rizwan, last time you said,

17:47Mumbai… Sorry, Bangalore has to change their slogan. Yes, in a way, it happened. Because in

17:55a press conference, Mark Duplassie, who is not good with his English, by mistake, he happened to say,

18:03E-SAL-KAP-NAHI. So, that's a good omen for them.

18:09Because of that, it might change for them.

18:10So, they might actually win it.

18:14Definitely. I saw that, yeah. Good one.

18:18But I think, Satish, I've got to disagree with Wood being in such good form right now. He's

18:22probably going to be relishing taking on Chennai. I've come off from a heavy defeat. Pradeep,

18:25what do you think about tonight's game? Who do you think has the edge?

18:29I would be putting my money on Lucknow. They are a better balanced side. I don't think

18:37it'll be very easy to beat them. I mean, again,

18:43if you say winning percentage of Chennai in Chennai is very, very high. It's unprecedented.

18:48It's about 70 plus percent. They've won the matches when they've played there.

18:53But probably, that Dhoni and now, it's been what? He's been a year and a half

19:02or a little more than that away from competitive cricket. Yes, of course, he's a great mind

19:08and a master tactician. And strategy-wise, he's great.

19:14But like they say, you need to have that real match experience to be

19:22really ready for all this. So, I would bet on Lucknow.

19:27Okay, we'll see how that one goes. But in the meantime, head to gulfnews.com for all the latest

19:31news and reviews. Also, make sure to check us out on our social media platforms. That's all

19:36from us for today. Thank you to my guests and we will see you again next week.

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