IPL 2021 | Hits & Flops as Prithvi Shaw-Shikhar Dhawan show dethrone CSK in their season opener

Blistering half-centuries from openers Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw helped the Delhi Capitals annihilate Chennai Super Kings in the second game of the 14th edition of the IPL in Mumbai.

In a fitting end to all the hypes and build-ups for a contest between MS Dhoni and Rishabh Pant, the Capitals’ skipper smashed a Shardul Thakur’s delivery past the long-on boundary and left MS Dhoni a helpless man behind the wicket.

The match, well-projected as the battle between the master and the apprentice was stolen away by a riveting Prithvi Shaw who carried his form from the Vijay Hazare Trophy. On the other side of the 22 yards, Dhawan looked in menacing form and must have sent a timely reminder of his prowess with the bat to all his critics.

Here, we will decipher the best and worst performances from the second game of the IPL 2021

Hits

Prithvi Shaw

The downward curve of Prithvi Shaw was established on the second ball of India’s Test series against Australia when he was bowled by Mitchell Starc. The dismissal was followed by another similar mode in the second innings and his technique was scrutinised by purists and trolled by the fans.

After coming back to India, he went to Pravin Amre to work on his technique in which his bat speed was creating a big gap between his pads and wicket. The move paid dividends straight away as he plundered more than 800 runs in the Vijay Hazare Trophy earlier this year.

However, a bigger test was due for him and IPL 2021 were to be his first moment of reckoning.

In almost a poetic justice, Shaw got going on the second ball of his innings albeit it was not a lethal one and did not come from an angle of trouble. Instead, it was a wayward delivery from Deepak Chahar who went searching for glory ball right at the start.

The timing was sumptuous and Shaw was off and running. Talking about confidence, he showed, where he is at the moment when a half-decent delivery from Chahar in his third over was pumped over long-on from a front foot press. The shot exemplified that Shaw and his eagle eyes to pick up the length f the ball early was back.

There was no stopping Shaw from there and be it Sam Curran’s full deliveries or Ravindra Jadeja’s attempt to bowl into the pitch, everything went rollicking to the boundary ropes with amazing ease.

The front foot press was impressive and all the attempts to check his fiery strokes went down the drain as MS Dhoni was left clueless behind the wicket. However, the Super Kings bowlers were guilty of not trying to change things up for the right-hander.

Shaw was on full flow and when Dhoni brought Sahrdul Thakur to shake things up like he has been doing for Virat Kohli in international colours, he suffered the absolute might of Shaw’s range of shots. 

A back of a length delivery was smashed past cover, a slower ball was guided between the backward point and short third man, while a touch fuller length disappeared over the top. Three different types of deliveries on three consecutive balls were dispatched for boundaries and Shaw was ruling the show.

Having seen pacers going for a whole heap of runs, Dhoni brought Ravindra Jadeja and Moeen Ali to contain the DC batsmen. The night was to be Shaw’s though, and Jadeja was sent over long with absolute disdain and Ali was not accurate enough to challenge him. Shaw reached a 27-ball-fifty to earn redemption after suffering an excruciating season last year.

The fifty did not provide any respite to the Super Kings, but they have to blame themselves for spilling as many as two chances off him. Shaw was not complaining and there was a hunger for more and more as he was looking to make up for whatever he has had to suffer in the last few months due to his poor form.

By the time, he was gone to a slower one from Dwayne Bravo in the 14th over, the Capitals were well on their way to chase what would have appeared as a challenging total at the halfway stage.

Shikhar Dhawan

Ask any cricket fan what Shikhar Dhawan is known for, and the most probable answer will be timing through the off side. He has been a stupendous timer of the ball and that attribute defines the kind of form he is in at the start of an innings.

Having conceded a boundary through the leg side from Shaw at the other end, Chahar ran in and pitched his fourth ball of the game in the fuller region. Sadly for him, the ball turned out to be a half volley and that too a wide one. Dhawan pulled out a bludgeoning drive to send the ball behind the backward point to the boundary like a tracer bullet. 

If that drive off Chahar was not an ominous sign for the Super Kings, Sam Curran repeated the mistake of bowling full to him. A resplendent straight drive dispatched the ball back past the bowler in no time and the Capitals openers announced their onslaught in pursuit of 189 runs in their season opener. 

There was no respite for Super Kings and Curran was treated in a more brutal fashion in his next over with an equally splendid drive that went to the Capitals dugout.

While Shaw was going all guns blazing at one end, Dhawan was matching fire with fire at the other end. His confidence was visible when he launched a back of length delivery from off-spinner Ali over the midwicket. He attempted to reach the pitch of the ball but in the end, muscled it over midwicket, but not with his otherwise ferocious slog sweep.

Dhawan reached a 35-ball-fifty and was looking threatening for another century after scoring a match-winning ton against the men in yellow in the last season.

There was no express pace bowler in the Super Kings line-up today and the fact was not lost on the experience of Dhawan. The old horse Dwayne Bravo relies on his slower balls till a point that they are not variations anymore and he treated him exactly like that, as a spinner. CSK’s bowlers would have seen the Capitals pacers using cutters to good effect and Dhawan was proactive on that front as well.

He kept moving in his crease, sometimes even going across the stumps closer to the wide line and none of the Chennai bowlers had any sense of imagination to fox him. His assault was so disheartening that Shardul Thakur was forced to do a Wahab Riaz (bowling far outside the stump line, when batsman can’t reach a delivery on the stump line) in the latter overs. 

He could not reach another three-figure-mark but his breathtaking innings literally sent the Super Kings gasping on the second night of the IPL 2021.

Avesh Khan

In the absence of Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje—their trump cards in the last season, the Capitals under the leadership of Pant and Ponting had the option of picking an all-Indian pace attack of Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav and Avesh Khan. But, true to his characteristics, Ponting played a high-risk game right at the start of the season played only Avesh out of the trio.

The move of overlooking both Ishant and Umesh was rather surprising and Ponting would have dealt much flak in case it were to go wrong.

Avesh Khan returned as a much more lean man and was at the top of his game right from the start. His length was nagging and the line got better with each ball. He did not take long to produce a jaffa to catch Faf du Plessis in a no man’s land. The length was perfect for a seamer who relies on natural variations off the pitch and du Plessis was gone for all money in front of the stumps.

The move was working for the Capitals, but Moeen Ali tried to target him in his next over. Being asked a question on the back of a splendid drive from Moeen, Avesh showed his repertoire and tested Ali with a chest-hight short ball. However, Ali was up to the task and hit him for consecutive boundaries.

A spell of two overs with the new ball and taking one wicket of du Plessis would have been a job well done for him, but there was more for him on the night.

After an initial hiccup, Raina and Ali had brought CSK back on track to put a big total on the board. Pant recalled Avesh right when Dhoni walked out to bat. Avesh Khan bowls hard length and it worked wonders for the Capitals as Dhoni was beaten for pace off the pitch as the ball skidded off the surface and the Super Kings captain went out for duck for the first time since 2015 edition of IPL.

He conceded only seven runs in his third over and clogged the momentum back in Capitals favour with the wicket of Dhoni. He was persisted with for another over and he did not disappoint his captain yet again. However, the mode of weapon was a cutter as the pair of Jadeja and Curran could not get a grasp of his variations.

A bowling figure of 4-0-23-2 looks fantastic for a T20 match, more so when the opposition post a total of 188 runs in their 20 overs of batting. Needless to say, Avesh Khan repudiated all the doubts about him and cemented his place for some matches even when the thunderbolt pair of Rabada and Nortje will back in the playing XI.

Flops

MS Dhoni

MS Dhoni has had a disastrous IPL last year and the current season was touted to be his swansong. There was a huge build-up for his return, so much so that the official Twitter handle of the league tweeted a video of him smiling while coming in for the toss.

The Super Kings have undergone quite a few changes from the last season and the fans would have expected a better return from the men in yellow. 

What followed was equally, if not more disastrous for both Dhoni and his team in their opening clash of the season. Dhoni, the batsman, could not utilise the opportunity of a platform to launch an onslaught on the bowlers and was caught rooted to the crease with a one that skidded off the surface.

Dhoni got his last duck in the IPL way back in 2015 and it establishes his consistency of delivery and it was just the last season when he struggled to get the ball off the square.

Having failed as one of the architects of the Super Kings batting, Dhoni would have been relieved as Curran and Jadeja guided the team to a total they could be confident of defending.

Dhoni was deemed quite a defensive captain in the longest format of the game, but the same experts have touted him for being proactive in the shortest one. None of those virtues was visible during the game against the Capitals when the pair of Shaw and Dhawan were tearing apart the bowlers. He did not appear to be in control of the game and rather looked clueless on most occasions albeit the credit should be given to both Shaw and Dhawan for bringing out their best and unravelling the worst of the Kings.

He would have seen the Capitals bowlers making good use of the cutters and he should have switched to Bravo a bit early in the innings when Shaw was enjoying pace on the ball. He could have slowed the pace of the game by asking his bowlers to bowl into the pitch at a slower pace but bowlers were pedestrian with one-dimensional tactics of bowling full to Shaw and Dhawan.  

The Super Kings copped quite a hammering at the hands of Shaw and Dhawan and Dhoni will have to take a fair share of responsibility for the annihilation in the very first game of the season. 

Ravichandran Ashwin

R Ashwin has been quite vocal about his international ambitions in the white-ball formats in the World T20 scheduled to be played in India later this year.

Ashwin has only the IPL this year to make his case for the World T20 and the start has been terrible for the experienced pro. Ashwin emerged on to the sense from the stage of the IPL and hence it is quite fitting for him that IPL is being stacked as another bridge of opportunities for his international destinations.

Ashwin was treated disdainfully more worryingly by the two left-hander sin Moeen Ali and Suresh Raina. But, what would be hurting Ashwin tonight that he was hit over the top by both the batsmen from their backfoot and batsmen also by coming down the pitch.

It signifies that the off-spinner was not accurate on all accounts and could not execute whatever plan he had against the left-handers one bit.

Ashwin has had the chance of putting his hands up right from the start of the IPL  as the stocks of the Yuzvendra Chahal-Kuldeep Yadav has started dwindling in the last few months. However, a bowling figure reading 4-0-47-1 will hurt him both personally and also his chances if at all he stood any of them to make it into the Indian squad for the World T20.

The game finished as a near-perfect one for the Capitals who did not miss the regular skipper Shreyas Iyer one bit while the result has left the Super Kings scrambling to search for the answers to many uncomfortable questions just two days in the tournament.