Caribbean Times 99th issue - Thursday 28th April 2016

20 c a r i b b e a n t i m e s . a g
Thursday 28th April 2016
Gujarat Lions survive Morris 82*
DELHI - It was IPL in a
nutshell. A big name - Brendon
McCullum - bossed the
start, so much that Gujarat
Lions recorded the fastest
hundred of the season. A
helpless collapse then killed
the prospect of a one-sided
game and Delhi Daredevils
would have fancied chasing
173 with dew gathering at
Feroz Shah Kotla. However,
they slipped to 16 for 3 and
the home fans despaired.
The game, though, wasn’t
done playing with everyone’s
emotions.
Out walked the million-dollar
man Chris Morris
with 116 needed off 56, and
walloped the third fastest
fifty in the IPL, off 17 balls.
When the match ended, he
was unbeaten on 82 off 32,
but there was no smile on
his face. It was stolen by
Praveen Kumar and Dwayne
Bravo, who gave away only
16 off the final two overs to
pull off a one-run win for Lions.
Morris had come in at
No. 6 and launched his second
ball into the second tier
of the stands behind longoff.
Very few of his eight
sixes and four fours were
mistimed, but a lot of them
came as a result of his being
able to get under the ball.
Praveen prevented that in
the penultimate over of the
chase, conceding only four
to leave Daredevils needing
14 off six balls. Bravo,
bowling from around the
stumps, then hit the blockhole
repeatedly to deny
Morris’ sublime innings the
status of match-winning.
Suresh Raina gave his
frontline spinners - Ravindra
Jadeja and Pravin Tambe -
only one over each and they
cost a combined 31 runs.
Bowling with the wet ball,
they stood very little chance
against Morris, armed with a
crowd that was bellowing his
name. His reach was handy,
his balance at the crease was
pristine and his clarity of
thought handling a required
rate that was above 12 was
downright chilling.
Morris’ first two sixes
dragged the equation down
from 101 off 48 to 85 off 42.
Two against Tambe in the
15 th over brought it to 57 off
30. A hat-trick of them in the
17 th over bowled by Dwayne
Smith sealed his fifty and
left Daredevils needing 29
off 18.
But JP Duminy, who had
begun Daredevils’ revival,
was undone by a Bravo
slower ball for 48 which
provided just enough of an
opening for Lions to sneak
through.
Their victory had almost
seemed a formality when
McCullum smashed Lions’
fastest fifty, and Smith
usurped him a few minutes
later. Along the way Lions
had reached 100 for 0 in a
mere nine overs.
This batting line-up had
beaten perhaps the best one
in the IPL on Sunday, when
a Virat Kohli century had
Dwayne Bravo and Suresh Raina celebrate the wicket of JP Duminy.
not been enough. Daredevils
were looking at a target of
220, as a best-case scenario.
But Morris did what Royal
Challengers Bangalore’s
bowlers couldn’t; he had
set plans and executed them
very well. He dismissed Mc-
Cullum and Raina in the 12 th
over; Lions were short-circuited
and could only manage
55 runs in the remaining
48 balls.
Morris knew McCullum
thrived on fast bowling, so
he produced an offcutter that
dipped under the bat swing
and broke the stumps. He
targeted Raina’s body and
had leg gully in place to
take the catch. That gave the
Daredevils spinners some
freedom.
Imran Tahir added to
his reputation of being one
of the best bowlers in T20
cricket with a spell of 3 for
24, the hallmark of which
was his ability to vary the
pace and time the googlies
and flippers that surprised
the batsmen. Where his
slow-bowling partners Amit
Mishra and Shahbaz Nadeem
bowled flat in the
hopes of containing the batsmen,
Tahir backed his skill
to confound them. He had
Smith lbw with a ball that
skidded through off the pitch
and removed Ishan Kishan
and Dinesh Karthik off successive
balls in the 17 th over.
Much like Tahir, Dhawal
Kulkarni relied on his
strength - swing - to topple
Sanju Samson, an in-form
Quinton de Kock and Karun
Nair to lift Lions in the chase
but his 3 for 19 wouldn’t
have mattered much until
his new-ball partner Praveen
bowled an excellent final
over to strangle Morris and
finish with 4-0-13-0.