IPL Day Six - Down to Business

Day Six is where the IPL got down to business. The lacquer of hype had started to wear off; the cheerleaders had sorted out their routines and most of the players were onto their third set of clean pyjamas. This was a day not of warm-ups, ice-breaking and star-gazing, but real cricket; real tense cricket, as it turned out.

A match has an existence beyond the activities of the players out on the pitch; it is a creation of the intellect and imagination of all those who witness it. To be truthful, many of the games thus far have been rather sickly creatures, fading out of existence long before the final ball.

But the tussle between Chennai and Delhi was a more robust entity, a snarling, twisting tug of war in which neither side would budge. There was slack play here and there. There were dropped catches, fluffed stops and sloppy shots. The players, still moving through the gears, are yet to reach top speed. But bat didn’t smash into ball without reply and each wicket in turn was answered with a flurry of boundaries.

A B De Villiers was the thread stitching the Delhi innings together. He, with his middle order associates, hauled the Daredevils off their knees after early knock-downs, but Dilshan and Karthik fashioned only amusing cameos, mere trinkets, compared to the elaborate masterpiece being created by the South African at the other end. And the creative process can be cruel, as Andrew Flintoff will attest.

But Chennai’s chase began with rocket-like velocity and was sustained by Raina, Flintoff and Morkel. The yellow Chennai worm climbed above its blue cousin, then fell below it and in the end, viewers found themselves squinting at a tangle of graphical invertebrates, neither with the statistical strength to poke its pixelled head above the other. In the end, the engine began to splutter and Chennai ran out of gas, not for the first time this tournament.

The second game was closer. Chasing under lights is supposed to be difficult and Kolkata duly made it so, wilting under Rajasthan’s trademark harrying. But dogged Ganguly, relisher of scraps, fought on. Every move by the grandmaster Warne of the white teeth was parried by the black-shirted Prince of Kolkata. Warne delayed whilst he directed traffic. Ganguly stalled by walking down the pitch to explain to Yashpal Singh the importance of not getting out. Traps were set; sprung; re-loaded with bait.

Last ball of the sixteenth over. The required run rate is over ten. Munaf oversteps and Ganguly helps the reluctant ball to fulfil its destiny over square leg. A free hit. Munaf coughs up a wide half volley which is brutally persuaded deep over long off by Dada’s flailing chunk of willow. The required rate is now eight.

But, drenched in sweat and dew, Warnie wasn’t done. He enticed Yashpal into a dash at glory and with the scent of victory incense invading his nostrils, the youngster fell short of the boundary and his senior partner’s expectations. Ganguly roared his anger, swinging his bat at the blameless ground, demolishing imaginary mole hills of disgust. But a few balls later, he was nicked off by Kamran Khan and, with a last ball dive, a fumble and a scramble, we had arrived at an agony-prolonging tie.

In truth, the Super Over was not a complete success. A cardinal sin on occasions like these is to allow even one iota of tension to evaporate and the inordinate delays whilst bats were found, pads strapped on, rules explained and fields set, conspired to make the final over showdown a game-resolving formality rather than a crescendo of thrills. Gayle smashed big fours, but Pathan, down on one knee, heaved bigger sixes and Rajasthan had won, a reprise of their many glorious escapes of 2008. Shahrukh disappeared into the shadows, Shilpa Shetty looked incredulous and the tournament had truly begun.