Chennai Super Kings (CSK) failed to chase down the target against Punjab Kings (PBKS) on Sunday at the Brabourne Stadium and the power-hitters in the CSK’s dugout were in awe of the situation.
A young Indian fast bowler Vaibhav Arora stood tall in front of them, getting the white ball to swing both ways in the powerplay and keeping CSK’s bowlers within their limit. With Deepak Chahar, CSK has been on the greener side of the fence.
But it’s still too early to say if the PBKS have found their powerplay menace with the new ball. The 24-year-old had a fine impression with the ball who CSK had picked for 14 crore a couple of months before, and whose absence due to rehabilitation and injury had a clear impact on the team’s worst start of the season in the IPL history.
Arora who battled through CSK’s chase early on admitted to having batting nerves as well while standing at the top of his run for the first time in the tournament managed to shake the feeling quickly.
“Yeah there was the pressure of it being a debut match for me but I had belief in myself, that I’ve done this before in the domestic circuit and practice matches. Wherever we’ve played – I’ve always bowled well with the new ball, swung it both ways. So there was confidence. I reaped the result of that confidence,”
Arora said in the post-match press conference.
Mayank Agarwal saw the changes in the bowling of Arora early on while the ball still swung for him. Arora held up his struggle to end the bargain pretty well as PBKS sought two or three PowerPlay wickets to ensure CSK were out of the track earlier.
Arora dismissed the CSK’s new-found top-order basher in Robin Uthappa and their spin crushed through the middle in Moeen Ali and set the tone for PBKS to successfully defend 180/8.
“Since the ball was swinging, Mayank [Agarwal] told me to go for my fourth [over] straight away since I’d already picked two wickets in my three overs. We had Arshdeep Singh and Kagiso Rabada to bowl at the death so the plan was to try for another wicket in my fourth over,”
Arora revealed. Though he didn’t get that, he finished with figures of 2 for 21 in a four-over spell that included 14 dot balls.
Three days after CSK became the victim of excessive dew while having to defend their total, the ground staff at Brabourne sprayed Aspa 80 – an anti-dew agent – all over the ground. On March 31, Stephen Fleming had compared the wetness on the outfield to the Niagara Falls as they couldn’t possibly defend their total of 210 on that ground.
But the proceedings on Sunday on the same ground seemed different. Though Ravindra Jadeja won the toss and opted to field in anticipation of dew setting in, later on, it didn’t turn up as potently expected before.
Chris Jordan, who bowled exceptionally at the death for CSK and nailed almost all of his yorkers, revealed in the innings break that the dew, surprisingly, hadn’t arrived by the end of the first innings, which went on till 9.23 PM IST.
Arora then stated that it didn’t affect PBKS in the PowerPlay either.
“I felt the dew was a little less today compared to the previous games. Dew was there but not so much that the ball was getting too wet. I didn’t bowl at the death but the new ball didn’t get too wet today.”