We will have a full-fledged Ranji Trophy tournament - Sourav Ganguly

IPL 2020 | RCB vs RR: What Experts said as AB de Villiers hammering results in yet another forgetful outing for Jaydev Unadkat

It was all going smooth for Saurashtra captain and Rajasthan Royals’ experienced death overs bowler Jaydev Unadkat until a certain AB de Villiers decided to come to his vintage self and hit 19 out of the 26 runs in the penultimate over of the innings, making him look stupid to concede 26 runs when 35 was required from the last two. In the next over as well, de Villiers hit a six of Jofra Archer’s bowling to seal the deal for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in Dubai. The chase seemed more than difficult at one moment when 14 an over was required and there was no settled batsman at the crease, as both Devdutt Padikkal and Virat Kohli got out at the same time. But as they say, 'never say never' and de Villiers believing in it, went for the kill at the end. Unadkat, prior to his last over had given only 20 runs, so choosing him ahead of Jofra Archer to bowl the 19th was a sane choice at that moment by the skipper Steve Smith. But in hindsight, people may and did blame him for going for the wrong choice as the penultimate over must always be bowled by the best bowler in the team and that was Archer. Captains’ Viewpoint All said and done, credit must be given to de Villiers for applying himself in the chase. Reacting to an unimaginable victory, RCB skipper Virat Kohli said that it was important that they win the match as two points are very crucial at this stage. The captain further talked about the hero of the game, AB de Villiers saying, “If we have to be honest, you are tense because you're not sure how many balls he will face. When he plays like that you want him to face every ball, no offense.” Kohli further praised de Villiers saying that the South African ‘always bats by the situation and he ‘always looks at the team situation.’ “In my eyes, he's the most important match-winner in the IPL. It is purely because of the presence of that man in the middle the opposition feels we're not out of the game,” he added. Analyzing the season as a whole and recounting the positives so far, Kohli said, “Young Dev has come in and has batted beautifully. Finch has made an impact at the top. We understand the dynamics. The bowling has stepped up this season. Guys have come back strongly when put under pressure. Saini has been brilliant. Chahal and ISuru have bowled well.” Frustrated with two losses from positions where they could have easily won, Steve Smith said, “Sure [It] is a hard pill to swallow. Just got AB'd there. That's two in a row we were in the box seat to win but didn't.” Disappointed with the way things shaped up after being able to put up a good score on the board, Smith said, “I think it was a good score on a slow wicket. I thought we built the pressure pretty well and it took a pretty special inning to take RCB home.” Answering the million-dollar question of why did he bowl Unadkat ahead of Archer in the penultimate over, the 33-year-old Australian said, “We wanted to use Jaydev to the bigger boundary, he bowls a lot of slower stuff into the wicket. But obviously, no boundary is big enough for AB.” Expert Opinion Experts too questioned Smith for how and why he bowled Unadkat in the penultimate over. But what was even more talked about was the ABD show. Talking about the same, a cricketer turned cricket analyst, Aakash Chopra said that he hadn't seen as big a blunder as by Steve Smith for not bowling Jofra Archer in the death overs." On the other hand, Broadcast Journalist Vikrant Gupta was full of praises for AB de Villiers. Boria Majumdar, one of the most renowned faces in the field of cricket analysis, questioned Virat Kohli stating that no one should ask ABD to come down the order, not even the captain himself. Gaurav Kalra, one of the sports journalists generally known for his wit and charm and equally important sense of humor said that it was thanks to the genius mind of Virat Kohli that AB de came to finish the game, batting at the exact right position in the batting order. Vimal Kumar, another broadcast journalist raised an altogether different set of topics saying that uncapped Indian players would be feeling proud that they shared dressing rooms with the great ABD.

IPL 2020 | DC vs CSK: Dhawan hundred condemns Chennai to sixth defeat of the season

Brief Scores: Chennai Super Kings 179/4 in 20 overs (Faf du Plessis 58, Ambati Rayudu 45*; Anrich Nortje 2-44) lost to Delhi Capitals 185/5 in 19.5 overs (Shikhar Dhawan 101*; Deepak Chahar 2-18) by 5 wickets. Shikhar Dhawan enjoyed the rub of the green to jack up his maiden IPL century as Delhi Capitals trumped a fearsome 180-run chase to retrieve the top spot in the 34th match of the Indian Premier League. Notwithstanding the left-hander's masterclass, things came a bit too close for comfort as DC required 17 off the last six balls. Chennai Super Kings rued the services of an ailing Dwayne Bravo in the ultimate over, with Axar Patel scourging Ravindra Jadeja for three mind-boggling sixes to seal the deal on Saturday, October 17 at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium. The tables have turned and how. Touted as hot favourites, CSK now find themselves into the must-win territory and ought to conquer all their remaining games in order to progress to the qualifiers. Shaw fiasco, Curran blinder, and Iyer's injury scare Deepak Chahar's swing and Prithvi Shaw's fidgety technique was the perfect recipe for disaster and a cagey return chip in the quick's follow-through vindicated the fact. The catching benchmarks just keep refining with each passing day as Sam Curran plucked an absolute screamer at backward point to leave Ajinkya Rahane in awe. Shreyas Iyer twitched a muscle while scampering through for a risk-laden single and would have been a goner had Shane Watson nailed the bullseye. Dhawan's third fifty on the bounce Iyer posed for the cameras as he bejewelled an exquisite lofted on-drive off Shardul Thakur before Dhawan survived a dropped chance against Jadeja. The ace opener continued to live on the knife's edge, with another reckless flash evading Watson at third-man by a smidgen. However, it seemed as if there was a magnet attached to his willow's sweet spot from there onwards. He skipped out from the blocks to flog Karn Sharma over his head while threading the needle with a magnificent backfoot punch through covers. While Dhawan was back to his best, Iyer rode pillion for the best part of their 68-run partnership, eventually succumbing to Bravo in a bid to produce an encore of his gun-barrel straight jewel. Lady luck showers blessings on Dhawan Believe it or not, fortune smiled upon Dhawan once again as Ambati Rayudu flubbed his aerial thump. Despite Marcus Stoinis' exit for a quickfire 24, the southpaw's daredevilry kept DC in the hunt. He launched Curran into the stands with an eye-popping check-drive before manoeuvring across the stumps to ramp Thakur to aggregate his career-high IPL score. He was adjudged caught behind one short of hundred but technology arrived to the rescue, following Alex Carey's departure in the 19th over off Curran. Axar you beauty! The celebration was rather subdued when he did notch the magical three figures because the game was still far from finished. The jury's still out on whether Dhoni's verdict to gamble with Jadeja in front of left-hander Axar Patel, although there's nothing to snatch away from his match-winning cameo, that helped DC recapture the monarch's throne in terms of the points tally. Seasoned campaigners' alive and kicking Partners-in-crime Shane Watson and Faf du Plessis hit the dance floor after Sam Curran erred a pull down to the third man off young Tushar Deshpande. The first four overs brought an exigent 15 runs but CSK broke the shackles henceforward. Du Plessis read compatriot Anrich Nortje like a book, kneeling on his haunches to lap an audacious maximum. Ravichandran Ashwin turned predictable with those carrom balls in his second over to concede three boundaries while Deshpande had his morale dented courtesy du Plessis birching a six and a four. CSK meet a bump on the road Nortje retaliated for a second wind to nip the 87-run association in the bud, castling Watson with a cross-seamed shooter for 36. DC could've tightened the noose even further but Dhawan shelled a low, dying chance sauntering in from long-on to reprieve du Plessis. However, the thigh-slap shenanigans were witnessed soon as he compensated for the faux pas to remove the Protea. Jadeja fireworks hog the limelight Ambati Rayudu stoked the ire of his detractors who label him a sluggard with an urgent 45, albeit MS Dhoni feathered behind to vanish without troubling the scorers. For all of the pyrotechnics hitherto, Ravindra Jadeja stole the thunder towards the fag end, barreling a six-studded 13-ball 33 to help CSK plant the cherry on their cake. It was perhaps poetic justice that he was the one who stood at the receiving end of Axar's carnage later in the zero hour. Next on the itinerary If you peer from the cynic's lens, poor levels of groundwork plotted CSK's downfall tonight as the batsmen and bowlers did measure up the expectations. Catches win matches. Cliched, yet a holy grail of this beautiful sport. Hopefully, there won't be so much of butter smeared into their fingers as Rajasthan Royals lie in wait for at Abu Dhabi on Monday, October 19. DC have earned their spurs with a crackerjack seven victories in nine games and would aspire to cut the ticket to play-offs in their next feud versus bottom-dwellers Kings XI Punjab. Should be a walk in the park, eh.

IPL 2020 | DC vs CSK: Hits and Flops as Dhawan, Axar Patel trounce Dhoni's Super Kings

Of all the holes in the Chennai Super Kings’ ship Dhoni had talked about, death bowling was exposed in the night when Shikhar Dhawan and Axar Patel put on a show to defy all that men in yellow had to throw at them. Chasing 180 at the sluggish Sharjah stadium, the Delhi Capitals won the game by five wickets and rose to the top of the table dislodging Mumbai Indians. Here we select the performances that tipped the balance towards either team. Hits Shikhar Dhawan Dhawan batted through the innings and went off the field only after Delhi Capitals won the match in a resounding manner and conquered the top of the table. He completed his century in 57 balls and was brilliant against every bowler that MS Dhoni tried against him. Dhawan was aggressive on anything that was full bowled to him and especially the six he hit in the 17th over off Sam Curran was reminiscent of what he is capable of doing with the bat. Dhawan has been batting fluently at the top of the order and if Prithvi Shaw can get back to his touch Delhi Capitals are a team to beat in the IPL 2020. Dhawan showed immaculate precision in picking gaps and adjusted his batting stances every now and then to send the balls into unmanned zones. Chennai Super Kings did not help themselves by dropping as many as four catches off him when he was batting at 25, 27, 50, 79, and Dhawan, like all good players do, made sure that the Super Kings paid for their mistakes. Axar Patel When Axar Patel walked into bat in the 19th over, Shikhar Dhawan was timing the strike brilliantly at the other end and by the time he was on the strike in the last over, the match was hanging in balance. With Delhi needing 15 runs off the last four balls of the over bowled by Ravindra Jadeja, Axar belted three sixes off the next four balls and snatched the victory away from the Chennai Super Kings’ hands. Axar Patel has been a critical element of Delhi's success in the current edition and has stepped up his game after Amit Mishra was ruled out due to an injury. He has performed well with both bat and ball and has shone in crunch situations when the captain has called on him. Earlier in the night, Axar was superb with the ball as well and squeezed the Super Kings’ batsmen for runs. He was at his usual best of hitting tricky lengths aiming at stumps. Albeit he could not take any wickets, he was miserly in his four overs and yielded only 23 runs. Ambati Rayudu When Ambati Rayudu came to bat in the 12th over, the CSK were in an all too familiar position of not having enough runs on the board and the batting pair before him could not hit boundaries at will. Rayudu, too, could not get going from the ball one but a sweep shot in the 14th over bowled by Ravichandran Ashwin got him going. Rayudu never looked back and started timing the ball brilliantly as the innings progressed. He displayed his range of shots and the six he hit over the extra cover boundary off Anrich Nortje, who has been one of the best death bowlers in the ongoing season of the IPL was nothing short of breathtaking. Rayudu found an able partner in Ravindra Jadeja and the duo combined to take on the Delhi’s bowlers and built a dominating partnership of 50 runs from just 21 balls and helped Cheanni surge past the 170-mark. Flops Ravindra Jadeja Ravindra Jadeja holds the key in Chennai's success, as well as failures and sadly for him and for the men in yellow both aspects were clearly visible in the match against Delhi Capitals. With the bat in hand, he was successful in hitting some lusty blows and guiding the team to a respectable total but a horrible last over where he produced all the five balls in the hitting zones of the batsmen, he also turned to be the villain of the game for the team. With Bravo going out of the field due to discomfort, Dhoni trusted him to keep a check on Delhi’s hunt of 17 runs but Jadeja was abysmal to start with. He bowled the first ball wide and while Dhawan could take only a single off his next ball, Axar Patel made sure that Jadeja could not get away bowling length balls in the last over of the chase. MS Dhoni MS Dhoni’s miserable journey in the IPL 2020 seems to have no end as he is batting a two-front battle. First, he is failing regularly as a lead batsman of the side while his team has not been able to bring their best game so far in the IPL, barring a few games when they have shown the glimpses of their glorious past. MS Dhoni came to the crease at the number five in the 15th over and while the team required him to go big from the ball one, Dhoni failed yet again to accelerate and left the team in limbo. As a captain of the side, Dhoni seemed to be out of control and asked Jadeja to bowl the final over of the game despite not favouring him during the rest of the innings. Prior to the final over Jadeja was given just one over to bowl in the early part of the innings and then was asked to defend 17 runs in the last over of the chase. However, his call was forced due to an unfit Dwayne Bravo who had walked out of the pitch due to some discomfort and did not return. Hence Dhoni was left with the choice of either Jadeja or Karn Sharma for the final over. He would have earned the plaudits had Jadeja pulled it off and hence should be held responsible when the gamble did not pay off as well. MS Dhoni’s CSK has not played this season like a side that has the legacy of winning three titles and reaching the playoffs and it seems that their days of survival in IPL 2020 are numbered. The team has silently walked into the dangerous territory of must-win games and from now onwards, there will be an additional test of the team’s character apart from the performances they put up in the IPL 2020.

IPL 2020 | RCB vs RR: Hits and Flops as 'Superman' AB de Villiers powers RCB to win

A valiant fifty from captain Steve Smith and an aggressive start by Robin Uthappa could not prevent the Rajasthan Royals from slipping away with another loss in the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League. The Royal Challengers Bangalore came out as the winners on the back of an unbeaten partnership between AB de Villiers and Gurkeerat Singh Mann. Here we decipher the performances that tilted the balance in the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s favour and took away all the advantage from the Rajasthan Royals. Hits AB de Villiers There are not too many players better than AB de Villiers to be on the pitch with the bat in hand when your team needs 35 runs from the last 12 balls. He was not to disappoint the fans as he exploded to showcase his range of ferocious shots and clobbered the Royals out of the game. De Villiers had come into bat when Devdutt Padikkal got out on the last ball of the 13th over and the team was in a precarious situation, needing more than 12 runs an over for the next seven overs to come. To add to it, he was put under immense pressure by the departure of Virat Kohli on the very next ball, after he was caught via an incredible effort from Rahul Tewatia in the deep mid-wicket. And it was left for de Villiers to take centre stage and fire all his cylinders if RCB were to take the two points from this game. The 19th over was the point that tipped the balance towards RCB when AB de Villiers when he took down Jaydev Unadkat for three consecutive sixes. Captain Steve Smith took a gamble off Unadkat and held back Jofra Archer for the last over and AB de Villiers showed great match awareness and made the most of Unadkat over and left too little to do from Jofra Archer’s over. It was fitting for AB de Villiers to hit the best bowler in Rajasthan Royals’ camp - Jofra Archer for a six to seal the game and RCB has come back on the winning way after having a bad game against Kings XI Punjab in their last match. Chris Morris The RCB management and Virat Kohli had waited for a long time for Chris Morris to debut in the IPL 2020 and the South African all-rounder put on performances match after match to prove the worthiness of a prolonged wait. Chris Morris was on song from his first over and got better of all the overseas star batsmen in the RR line up. After giving away only three runs in his first over, he returned with his second over in the sixth over of the innings and accounted for Ben Stokes by beating him with pace. Kohli has been very smart at using Morris’s prowess in the latter half of the innings and he brought Morris back in the 16th over and Morris did not disappoint his captain and scalped Jos Buttler who was beginning to cut loose on a short of a length delivery. By that time, he had broken the spine of the RR’s batting and also checked the momentum of the innings. Coming back to bowl his fourth over in the final over of the innings, he made sure that the RR do not run away with a flurry of boundaries and pile on score more than the RCB could afford to choose by dismissing a well-set Steve Smith on the first and Jofra Archer on the last ball of the over. Chris Morris is looking sharp with the ball and he is leading the Royal Challengers to a good position in the IPL 2020 and the distance the team will cover in this edition is highly reliant on the fortunes of Chris Morris. Yuzvendra Chahal Chahal has been in the RCB camp for a very long period of time now and captain Kohli backs him to produce match-winning performances regularly. He has been in terrific form in this edition and has taken wickets in the middle overs and at the same time check the flow of runs to provide control to Kohli. The Rajasthan Royals were off to a blistering start and Kohli introduced him the eighth over in search of quick wickets to check Robin Uthappa from running away with the game. Chahal, like he has been doing for many matches for the RCB played tricks and the match was back in Bangalore's grasp. He has the habit of luring batsmen with balls pitching outside off and he enticed Uthappa to go across the line over midwicket. Uthappa took the bet but could only manage a top edge. He was alert to the nature of Sanju Samson’s batting and flighted the next delivery above his eye line right after getting hit for a six and induced a false shot and the Royals were dented after an impressive start. Flops Jaydev Unadkat Jaydev Unadkat is an IPL enigma and it should be known to his captains by now. He has been bought for outrageous prices in the previous editions but has not been able to replicate the promises that justify the lofty pricetags, especially when it matters. With the RCB requiring 35 off the 12 balls, including the six of him, captain Smith took a punt on him to bowl the penultimate over and backed him to come good enough to give Archer something to bowl the 20th over. Smith’s calculations went horribly wrong and Unadkat was smashed for three sixes in a row on the first three balls of the over and RCB were back in the game. It was not an unprecedented situation for a bowler against AB de Villiers but the choice of lengths left a lot to be desired on Unadkat’s part. He gambled on a slower ball on the first ball of the over knowing if de Villiers could pick, he could send him over the boundary line. His misery was not finished there as he bowled waywardly to Gurkeet Singh as well and allowed him the room to cart the ball over the off side where not a lot of fielders were patrolling the boundary. Unadkat leaked 25 runs in that over and with that, the chance of Archer defending a mere 10 looked bleak and AB de Villiers stamped the end of Royals with a big six off Archer in the next over. Ben Stokes There was a wide range of expectations building up when Stokes had come back from New Zealand and the Rajasthan Royals looked stronger and a team with balanced firepower. Three matches into this season and Stokes has added a little to the Royals’ side and has not been able to translate the amount of hype his return has created into performance on the field. Today, Robin Uthappa was batting at superb tempo and he had to make sure that the Royals capitalise on Uthappa’s resurgence but he looked rusty and was ultimately done in by Chris Morris. To his defence, he has been asked to open the innings and bat with unfamiliar match situations but players like Stokes can be relied upon to adapt to different challenges thrown at them. It seems he does not enjoy batting at the top of the order but he will have to pull up his socks if the Royals have to even dare to make it into the playoffs of the IPL 2020. Winning six out of the nine matches they have played this season, the RCB have looked like a side hungry for wins and have brought their A-game in tough situations while the Royals have slid further in the standings on the points table after another slip up on the field.