By the end of the Indian Premier League match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Daredevils, Angelo Mathews was trending on Twitter in India, ahead of even Player of the Match Kane Williamson. But both for very different reasons. While Williamson had powered his team to victory, Mathews seemed to have done something to the contrary. And social media was not being kind to the Sri Lankan all-rounder.
The criticism was harsh – he did, after all, score 31 off 23 stitching a last-man standing partnership of 70 with Shreyas Iyer. But, by Twenty20 standards, a strike rate of 134 is just not enough for a stiff chase. Especially not when the required run rate is hovering between 13 and 15, and definitely not a batsman with a strike rate of 238.70 this season, and an overall of almost 200 for Delhi, is waiting in the wings, for some inexplicable reason.
And that’s where the criticism should be aimed at – the Delhi Daredevils think tank that decided to promote Mathews ahead of Chris Morris for the second consecutive time, in the team’s second consecutive loss where explosive batting was the need of the hour.
In their previous match against Kolkata Knight Riders, the middle overs saw Karun Nair play a 27-ball 21 that drained the momentum from Delhi’s decision to set a big target. Playing his first game, Mathews had scored one run off four balls then before being bowled by Narine. Morris, who for some reason was held back at No 7, came in and scored 16 off 9. Against Kings XI Punjab, when Corey Anderson was the No 6, Morris scored 16 in 8 balls. Against Rising Pune Supergiant, he came in sixth and scored blasted 38 off 9 balls.
What further proof does the team management need to send him higher up? Especially when a mounting chase is dying down, with two big wickets – Nair and Pant – down in one over.
Morris over a Mathews returning from injury with one run to his name so far, would seem like a no-brainer to most. In the absence of Quinton de Kock, Nair is currently perhaps the most experienced batsman in the top order. If batsmen like Corey Anderson and Carlos Brathwaite don’t make it to the XI, the onus is on the think tank to identify the big hitters who can push the innings forward. Billings and Samson do that to a decent extent up the order, but Morris is your best bet in the middle and lower-order.
Yet this was not the only seemingly misplaced decision about the team combination that Delhi dug out.
Pant needs to come higher
Keeping a batsman like Rishabh Pant at No 5 makes little sense, especially batting after Nair and Iyer. True, he was promoted ahead of Iyer against Sunrisers and true he got a duck while Iyer scored a fifty, but the one-off failure and Nair’s brief return to good touch notwithstanding, Pant needs to bat higher up.
The 19-year-old is a prolific talent and needs more overs to bat upfront. As much as the MS Dhoni comparisons are flattering, there is hardly any need to keep him exclusively as a finisher, especially when Delhi lack batting heavy weights up the order. Sending Pant higher, maybe even to open the innings if the situation demands, would be a good way to utilise the youngster’s ample talent to the fullest.
Then, there is the question of the curious absence of Shahbaz Nadeem. Following a horses for courses policy, Delhi picked Jayant Yadav for Mohammed Shami who had replaced Nadeem in the last match. Jayant, who opened the bowling, went for 16 runs in his first two overs and didn’t get another chance. In a bowling-heavy unit led by a captain who is a bowler’s delight, it is strange to see the bowling-combination stutter. However, Zaheer Khan, who was right at every bowler’s shoulder offering advice as Sunrisers piled on the runs, will also have to go back to the drawing board to figure just what went wrong with his final over. Bowling the 20th over, he was taken for 17 runs by Deepk Hooda and Moises Henriques, and Delhi lost by a margin of 15 runs in the end. As the captain said after the match, that last over will haunt him for a while.
IPL is a format where there is little margin for error and even little room between games. Delhi will hope to set their playing XI right before they take on Mumbai Indians on Saturday. Other than Sunrisers and Kolkata, Mumbai have looked to be the most potent lineup in the tournament so far and another unsuccessful experiment batting order might prove to be fatal to Delhi’s momentum.
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