Pat Cummins was on fire and showcased his full array of strokes to give Kolkata Knight Riders an easy five-wicket victory against Mumbai Indians at the Mumbai Cricket Stadium in Pune on Wednesday.
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00:00I saw today. I blinked my eye. I thought it was Andre Russell batting. I opened my eyes again and then I saw it was Pat Cummins.
00:07He was hired, rather selected as a bowler by KKR. And today what he showed that he can do with the bat.
00:13Hello and good evening. Welcome to yet another show of our IPL special, Straight Bat with Mr Cricket UAE.
00:32We've got Mr Anish Sajjan, the man himself. And we've got two very special guests with us.
00:38The fans of Mumbai Indians and Maaz Ahmed. Maaz is representing Kolkata Knight Riders here.
00:46He will be a very happy person today. And we have Mr Raghuvani for Mumbai Indians.
00:52And along with us, we've got our expert in AK Satish, Sports Editor of Gulf News.
00:59I'll come back. Start with Mr Cricket UAE. Anishbhai, welcome to the show.
01:07And let's first talk about, where will T20 cricket go from here? Now, 50 or 14 balls. Next, what do we see?
01:17Thank you, Gautam. Hello, Satish. Hello, Maaz. Hello, Shailendra. Hello to all the beautiful people of Gulf News.
01:23What I saw today, I blinked my eye. I thought it was Andre Russell batting. I opened my eyes again and then I saw, it was Pat Cummins.
01:31He was hired, rather selected as a bowler by KKR. And today, what he showed that he can do with the bat.
01:37As you said, 14 balls, 50. And to score 55 or 56, whatever he scored, of 15 balls is still a shocker.
01:44And I'm sure the whole Mumbai must be in shock. So will be Rohit Sharma and especially the poor guy, the bowler Sam,
01:51who went for 35 runs in one over. But you have to put your heart and put it out for Pat Cummins.
01:58Right. I will quickly come over to Satish. Satish, you know, once again, we saw that, you know,
02:05batting becoming easy, definitely. I mean, you don't factor in for somebody going for 35 runs in
02:14an over, especially for someone like Sam, who started off quite well. So what do you think
02:20went wrong for him, Satish? I think, Gautam, it was Cummins' day. You can't, you know, like,
02:27stop him on his day. Because right from the time he came in, from the first ball, he was timing it
02:32so well. And he was not even hitting the ball to sixes. He was just timing it. And it was all
02:37going into the stance. So these are some of the days where, you know, you hope that you don't
02:43be on the opposite side than be in the same side. That's one of those knocks. And I still feel
02:50Mumbai lost a bit of a trick by not getting enough runs on board. I think maybe the toss
02:56played a role. But that gave Cummins that advantage of playing a shot. So that
03:02pressure was not there. All through the game, it was only about nine runs or eight runs. So
03:07at that rate, once you hit a couple of sixes and it comes down even to five,
03:11six, then it becomes much more easier. So it was a free-flowing game at that point of time.
03:18And nothing to take away the knocks from Cummins who played a brilliant knock.
03:22And these are some of the knocks we can't even think would happen in a given day. It's a freak
03:27knock. Right. I will come to Shailendra. I mean, see, the way Mumbai recovered, I mean, of course,
03:36there was a bit of luck. I mean, Tilak Verma getting that mix-up where, you know, it was
03:43certainly the wicketkeeper's catch and Ajinkya Rahane is an experienced customer. There was no
03:49need for him to run in from point and do that. So Tilak made very good use of that. And of course,
03:55such a difference, you know, Sky made to the batting, you know, despite he's so strong
04:01behind the wicket on both sides. So when they made, you know, this 160 plus, we thought that,
04:08you know, Mumbai, they've got, we've got a match on our hands. So what do you feel,
04:14Shailendra ji? I mean, three out of three, I mean, this, as Rohit himself said that I don't
04:19want to be in this kind of a position, you know, that of a slow starter. Do you think Mumbai can
04:25pull back things from here? See, actually, Mumbai has always been a slow starter. You know,
04:31over the years we have seen, in fact, one of the IPLs, they lost five and then they came back
04:38to, you know, reach the final. So they have been, but this time it's different, you know,
04:4610 teams and it's not going to be easy. Today's match, I thought, you know, they played really
04:54defensive. They had wickets in hand, but I don't know why initially they were so defensive. I mean,
05:02I thought they played a negative cricket batting, negative batting because, you know, they were
05:08just, I mean, it was as if the wicket was really hard. I mean, the ball was coming right onto the
05:16bat and it was difficult to play. But what we saw later on was not the case, you know. So,
05:24I mean, Sky, of course, he played, but he could have done better because he knew that there were
05:30others. Pollard was there and then, you know, few others were there who could hit, you know.
05:36But I think they just played defensively. I mean, 161 was definitely below par, I felt.
05:48Well, I'll come to Maaz, who should be wearing a broad green today and not
05:53look so serious. Maaz, Kolkata is carrying on the good work. I mean, a match, you know,
06:01it didn't go as per script. There were several ups and downs and then literally
06:06Cummins took it away from them. Even Russell fell early. During that time in the middle of it,
06:13there was a bit of a, you know, the short selection left much to be desired. The way
06:17Nitish Shana perished, that also couldn't be condoned. But all's well that ends well.
06:22What do you feel, Maaz? Well, I think we haven't played the best cricket yet. It's been Russell in
06:29the last match, Cummins in this match. But, you know, it's all been teamwork. We have been having
06:34a good start with bowling. Homesh Yadav has been phenomenal. And, you know, I felt bad for Tim
06:39Sorthi in the start because he had two good matches and Cummins coming and replacing him.
06:44But right now, if you ask me, even Tim Sorthi would be happy that he was not playing today
06:48and Cummins was playing in his place. Cummins was, I mean, I have no words for him. It was like,
06:53it was like a dream, like won over and it's done. And I think in his previous tour, he had a lot of
06:59biryanis and he has got that power. And I hope we see that in the next matches as well. So pretty
07:06happy with the captain as well, Shreyas Iyer. He has been phenomenal. The way he's rotating the
07:11ballers has been really good. So I see a long-term captain in him and really happy with the performance
07:19of KKR so far. I'll come to Anisbhai. Anisbhai, this Mumbai, I mean, I know they've lost the game
07:26and they'll be feeling terribly disappointed with it. But Mumbai has this tradition of, you know,
07:33creating stars, you know, whether it was Ishan Kishan at one point of time, you know, in 2020
07:39UAE and then again last year in Ishan Kishan. Then of course, Bumrah and the Pandya brothers,
07:47they were part of their, you know, the scouts work. Now, Tilak Verma, I mean, I would like to
07:54place a lot of faith in him as a star of the future. In the same note, like Badoni is being
08:01talked about. If you can say a few things about Tilak. Well, yes, he showed what he's capable of.
08:07Like you mentioned, Mumbai has produced a lot of stars, whether it is just with Bumrah or the
08:12Pandya brothers or Ishan Kishan. And this year again, we see Tilak Verma, he played an excellent
08:17long in the last game, as well as today, like Shailendra mentioned that Mumbai were slow off
08:23the blocks. Yes, batting was difficult, but you have to give credit to KKR bowlers. They were
08:27bowling really a tight line. Only after he came, that sky probably opened up. That dropped catch,
08:33which was between Sam Billings and Rahane, actually proved so costly. And at one stage,
08:38I felt 160 would be good enough. But then as I saw one tweet, it said that Pat Kimmins came
08:44from Pakistan and blew away the Mumbai Indians all over to Pune. That's the way it has happened.
08:52Yeah, that's what it is. Satish, the thing about, you know, the bowling at the pathway,
09:01once again, Umesh held his own and he was carrying on the good work. And the KKR bowling,
09:09it's been by and large so disciplined. So today when I saw Bharat Arun coming out of the dugout
09:16for a few chats, and he kept things so simple. He had an answer for everything. When he was
09:21asked about Umesh, he said that if you look at his record in the powerplay, he's always been good.
09:27And with an average of 7.5, I mean, that's his strike rate. So do you think he's making
09:35that difference in the discipline of KKR bowlers? Gautam, today Indian team owes a lot to Bharat
09:43Arun because it is him who has brought in so many bowlers and whether the paces or the spinners and
09:49that the pool of talent, I think he needs to be credited for that. So obviously, like right from
09:55the time Umesh was bowling and one of the reasons why I picked Kolkata as a favourite is, the
10:02bowling was spot on in all the games, if you look at. They don't give you any freebies, nothing.
10:07And it was something extraordinary coming from Surya Kumar Yadav after the drop catch. I think
10:13he said, enough is enough. I know like he threw caution to wind and started playing the shots,
10:18which kind of clicked. But apart from that, the bowling, by and large, they bowled at good areas
10:23and bowled at the right areas. And there's nothing wrong with the bowling, excepting
10:28Mumbai took that last few overs, five overs, they took that advantage and they went ahead and
10:34went for the shots. But I think, yeah, with such a batting depth and the tight bowling, which they
10:41have been producing over the few games, they are certainly one of the favourites for the title
10:47right away. Right. Well, before we wrap up, as we say, we have got an interesting
10:53coming up at hand. We have got, it will be very good news for Delhi Capitals,
11:00who lost their last game narrowly though, that David Warner, both David Warner and
11:05Anrich Nokia, they're available for selection. So my question upfront, I'll take Anishbhai's view.
11:13Who would you go for in tomorrow's game, DC versus Gujarat?
11:18Well, I know Gujarat has won two games and DC has not so far started a world, just won one game.
11:24But like you mentioned, Warner coming back and Nokia coming back definitely boosts their team.
11:29And to be very honest, predicting a winner is very difficult, but I have to go with Delhi.
11:36Right. Shalutji, I'll come to you and I'll ask you to stick your neck out and pick a winner.
11:44Tomorrow is Lucknow and Delhi, not Gujarat. All right.
11:51Lucknow and Delhi. I mean, since Warner and Nokia both are available for selection,
11:58I think both will get into the team. Delhi will be surely a stronger one tomorrow.
12:04Right. Maaz, what do you feel? I mean, would you go with the common sentiment or do you feel that
12:10Lucknow has got a chance? Because they're gradually, it's still early days, but they've
12:15been gelling well as a team so far. Lucknow does have a chance, but I think it will be Delhi who
12:21is going to win the match tomorrow. As Mr. Shailender said that Warner and Nokia will be
12:27the team tomorrow. So I think Delhi has a better chance to win tomorrow.
12:31Right. And to end with you, Satish, what's your take?
12:36Tomorrow's game, I would also go with Delhi because they have a pretty good
12:45team altogether. And still, I think Lucknow is still in their initial stages.
12:52They are building as a team. But yeah, Rahul is a good captain. But still, I would say
12:57Delhi is a better team because last couple of years they've been progressing, doing well and
13:04getting better and better as the event goes. And I would say Delhi as well.
13:10Right. Yes, I think even I find it very difficult to see Delhi not pulling off this one. But it'll
13:18be interesting if Lucknow can carry on the good work and make it three wins on the trot. That'll
13:23be something really amazing from the newcomers. So on that note, I leave you all and we will be
13:30back again with another episode of Straight Back with Mr Cricket tomorrow after the game.
13:35Stay tuned. Good night.