Ashwin and DJ discuss week five of #IPL2024 including the five centurions - Jaiswal, Stoinis, Ruturaj, Jonny Bairstow and Will Jacks . We discuss the record breaking chase by Punjab Kings, Kohli’s matchwinning/matchlosing fifties and India’s T20 selection, particularly around the wicket keeper.
[00:00:01] Cricket Podcast. I'm your host Ashwin. I'm joined by DJ. DJ, it's been a couple of weeks
[00:00:18] since I've been on. You've had a little bit of time to record this show with Varun. First,
[00:00:21] let me ask how you're doing? IPL season is alive and kicking. I think this is week five
[00:00:26] of the extended season, 10 teams, et cetera. How are you doing?
[00:00:29] I think it's week six.
[00:00:31] Week six. There you go. I'm already losing track.
[00:00:34] At the day of recording this, we are exactly four weeks out from the
[00:00:38] final of the IPL. Exactly 20 days.
[00:00:42] Yeah, I'm enjoying the IPL. It's the season of cricket. The temperatures are going up.
[00:00:50] The first inning scores are going up. The second inning scores are going up.
[00:00:54] The morale is going down. There's questions about the curators being raised by some
[00:00:59] listeners. We're going to hit all of that, man. But yeah, good fun.
[00:01:04] All kinds of stuff happened this week. You summed it up well. I was trying to,
[00:01:08] as we were setting up and saying, okay, it's not as much fun to go through match by match.
[00:01:12] You guys last recorded about a week ago. We have had a week's worth of matches.
[00:01:16] In the week, DJ, we had at least two 500 plus games. We had combined scores.
[00:01:25] We had five centuries scored this week out of 11 total. In one week, five individual centuries
[00:01:32] were scored. Actually, I'm going to put you on the spot. Can you name all the five centuries
[00:01:35] in the last seven days? You can name four. I'll give you this correct.
[00:01:41] Ritharaj Gaikwad, Marcus Stoenis, Will Jax scored one today.
[00:01:49] His name is Jax. I don't know why you keep calling him Jax.
[00:01:52] There's a guy there. He's called Phil Jax.
[00:01:55] Phil Jax. You're thinking about Phil Jax. Okay. All right. That's acceptable.
[00:02:01] You said Gaikwad, Stoenis, Jax, Jax, whoever.
[00:02:06] Who else has got? Did Butler get one this week? No, Butler didn't. Yes,
[00:02:12] yes, we got one this week. He was my fantasy captain.
[00:02:16] Okay. Yeah. And then you got one more. This last one was actually in a chase.
[00:02:24] Of course. Bonnie Jesto. Bonnie. That's pretty good, dude. I don't think I could have named
[00:02:29] all five just put on the spot. We did not preprep that. I didn't send it to you. That's
[00:02:33] pretty good. Yeah. So five centuries. I think there were 11. There've been 11 at the time
[00:02:37] of recording this. That's five this IPL and five were made this week. And then I was
[00:02:40] kind of going through the points table and we'll go through it a little bit. But
[00:02:44] suddenly we're looking at the points table because Delhi is sitting fifth.
[00:02:48] Well, no, I was trying to. So yeah. So I was like with the start of the week,
[00:02:51] that the three teams at the bottom were RCB who've had back-to-back wins now,
[00:02:56] Delhi who've had back-to-back wins now, Punjab who've come off of the back of one win.
[00:03:00] And then kind of near the top was KKR who lost this week, Hyderabad who lost this week
[00:03:07] and as we record are currently playing the Gen 90. And Lucknow who lost this week. So the
[00:03:13] only consistent player who stayed kind of there, the only two consistent players have been
[00:03:18] Rajasthan at the top. Just unbelievable. One loss all season so far. And Mumbai near the bottom.
[00:03:26] Also continuing to I think they had two losses this week. So how do you feel like this is,
[00:03:30] I don't know, a cricket commentator's cliches and all that. Do you feel like this is a
[00:03:33] turning point? This is a critical week to try to cement your chances for qualification versus
[00:03:39] your likelihood of getting eliminated? Yeah, I mean it's super close. There's lots of teams
[00:03:43] on 10 points at the moment. A few of the teams have games in hand. I mean every week in the
[00:03:50] IPL is a crucial week man. Yes, it's a 10-week long tournament but you can't slip up
[00:03:56] even for a week, week and a half because you might lose two or three games and that
[00:03:59] puts speed to your playoff chances. And speaking of consistency, we are recording while CSK play
[00:04:06] Sunrise is Hyderabad and it has been exactly four minutes and two seconds but I have to mention
[00:04:11] MS Dhoni still remains unbeaten in this year's IPL with a 250 plus strike rate. 260 I read
[00:04:19] this morning and he, since you guys last recorded, he has also been undefeated
[00:04:25] obviously and has struck at 400. Now that's because he batted one ball and hit one four
[00:04:30] but his strike rate has been 400 since the last recording so I've got to give it to him.
[00:04:34] DJ, at what point as we're recording this, we might see it so you might go through this
[00:04:38] journey with us on the CSK versus SRH game. 14th over a wicket fell and
[00:04:50] Dubai walked out. How early would the earliest be that Tala walks out? If a wicket falls at 19.3,
[00:04:57] of course he's going to walk out. If it falls at like 17.1 does he walk out?
[00:05:02] What is the maximum number of balls Tala would allow himself to play?
[00:05:07] I don't know. Is the maximum that he's played this season 17 maybe? I think.
[00:05:12] Yeah probably against Delhi too right? Yeah he got 20 of five, he got 29 of eight.
[00:05:18] Yeah I'd say probably five, six is good man. That's 30 runs in the back.
[00:05:23] Six is enough. I was saying this jokingly in our WhatsApp chat but I was like this was
[00:05:28] very Narsawak's dream is in retirement life or close almost retirement life be able to come
[00:05:34] out bet six balls hit some boundaries and then leave. Now he didn't have the fitness to keep
[00:05:38] an entire 20 over. But it's perfect right? It's like the CEO in his like twilight years
[00:05:45] comes in at like 11.30 a.m. leaves at like 3.30 after lunch. Takes a two hour lunch in between.
[00:05:53] Yeah just love it. Easy life but like come in he's earned it right? 16 years of the IPL five
[00:06:00] trophies. I mean he's at this point has earned whatever he wants to do across team
[00:06:05] India, across team Jhanna. He has earned everything. You can't take anything away from
[00:06:11] And what he didn't start it. He put up a Facebook status I think saying
[00:06:16] get ready for the new role or something. Clearly this is the new role that he's playing which is
[00:06:21] that of the big hitting from 2005. DJ there's been a lot of chat about
[00:06:30] Wicketkeeper, India's Wicketkeeper for the World Cup. Even you as as big a Thala fan as
[00:06:36] you are. Are you considering somebody like an MS to play this role for the T20 World Cup?
[00:06:40] I know there's no chance. There's no chance. But send him to the US. Send him let him sit out
[00:06:48] and provide strategic inputs to Rohit Sharma. Yeah why not? Now that's if he wants to.
[00:06:57] Lots of questions and I do want to come back to this keeper chat because we've had another
[00:06:59] good week of Indian keepers playing really well including which will come to Samson and
[00:07:04] Jereld batting together to win a game for their Rajasthan franchise. So it's very,
[00:07:09] very interesting. DJ The Week started off with Mumbai playing Rajasthan and the main highlight
[00:07:14] in that game was Sandeep Sharma picking up a five for in his kind of return to the IPL.
[00:07:20] I mean this guy just I feel like I've been talking about him picking up three or four
[00:07:24] wickets at the end since 2009, 2010 maybe is that correct or is that just in my head?
[00:07:29] He's been around forever. He's almost an IPL stalwart at this point, right?
[00:07:34] Yeah, he's been around for a while. He also takes wickets with the new ball which sets him
[00:07:38] aside a little bit the likes of Dwayne Bravo or Harshal Patel who might pick up what we call
[00:07:45] junk wickets. Sandeep's wickets are also with the new ball and he seems the ball and
[00:07:50] swings it so I think there's a little bit more of we speak of him with a little bit
[00:07:55] more respect on that front. But no, I think it was his first game this season for RR maybe?
[00:08:03] Hey, so I just confirmed while you were talking his IPL debut was playing for the Punjab Kings
[00:08:09] against the Sunrise in Hyderabad. No, it was Kings XI Punjab.
[00:08:11] Oh, I guess so. Yeah, for some reason, Crick Buzz's scorecard has already changed but
[00:08:15] at that time it should have been Kings XI Punjab in 2013 and in his first game he picked
[00:08:19] up three for 21 in four overs. So that was his IPL debut which is kind of-
[00:08:24] I remember him taking lots of wickets at Dharamshala and stuff like that.
[00:08:28] Yeah, and then DJ in that chase, Mumbai versus Rajasthan, Mumbai makes 179 which
[00:08:35] in any year prior to this one would have been reasonably competitive at a ground like
[00:08:39] Jaipur potentially. I mean it's a joke almost and we want to talk to you a little bit more
[00:08:44] about run chases in this course but 180 just feels like what 130 felt like three years ago,
[00:08:50] two years ago even. Like easily chased, well I mean Rajasthan chased it one by nine
[00:08:54] wickets but most importantly how good and how important for him and for Team India
[00:08:58] was it to see Jaiswal Bhatt himself back into form.
[00:09:02] Yeah, and we'll talk about it when we talk about Johnny Bairstow as well because there
[00:09:06] was a Matt Roller article I think on Crickinfo which said, oh we need to take,
[00:09:10] give Bairstow a break, send him back home, let him relax before the T20 World
[00:09:15] Cup. England should call him back. That's one way of thinking of it. The other way is
[00:09:19] stick in there, guts it out and get back, play yourself back into form. And it was great to
[00:09:26] see a young player. I've been saying that Yashaswi feels a little bit jaded. He had a
[00:09:31] massive series against England and test cricket mentally is so hard right and he's a young
[00:09:36] player, 22-23 years old. He scored 700 runs, that's a huge achievement. It's the most number
[00:09:43] of runs scored by an opener, two double centuries. I mean incredible series right
[00:09:48] and to come into the IPL then it would have felt like a little bit of a joke to him maybe
[00:09:52] and the way he was getting out felt a little bit like that as well where he was like ramping it
[00:09:57] and missing it or whatever. Here you could see he dug himself in, he gave himself time up front.
[00:10:04] He had a bit of a hostile spell from Gerard Kotsay. That was an interesting over and then
[00:10:09] he was taken off for whatever reason. Another question around Hardik Pandya's captaincy,
[00:10:14] why would you take Kotsay off at that stage? But he unleashed, it's not the fastest T20 100 that
[00:10:20] he'll ever score but it's probably one of the more important ones with the T20 World Cup coming
[00:10:24] up. So it was really good from an India perspective to see Yashaswi back in form.
[00:10:30] Yeah, could not agree more. I think just to clarify one of the things you said,
[00:10:33] it's not that he thought he doesn't take the IPL seriously right but in terms of
[00:10:38] how he approached it etc. I think we sometimes underestimate as fans, as people who don't have
[00:10:43] to go out there day in day out, how much mental fortitude it takes. At this point let's be clear,
[00:10:48] they're all unbelievably tough. They just are. They all have timing, they all have skill,
[00:10:53] they all have finesse but the mental strength it takes to go day in day out. That's why
[00:10:58] the all format players are the ones who get the grade A contracts. That's why they're so
[00:11:02] few and far between. That is what makes the Rohit Sokoli, the boomers of the world
[00:11:07] so special and Jaiswal will undoubtedly be it but he's learning. It's part of his journey to
[00:11:13] understand how you dig so deep. So I like the way you said that. Yeah and also you can,
[00:11:19] two of my favorite social media moments this week have come from Jaiswal and they are just,
[00:11:25] the first one was when he was playing KKR and he said meet Shah Rukh Khan and he met
[00:11:31] Shah Rukh Khan and he's a 22, 23 year old kid and he's over the moon. He's amazed by it. He's
[00:11:39] loving meeting King Khan and the second moment was when he saw Brian Lara who's there commenting
[00:11:48] on the IPL and he just scored his 100. He's got his pads on and he goes and gives him a
[00:11:53] hug. He's like, I should, this is Brian Lara and Yashaswi Jaiswal is even younger than
[00:11:59] us but if you or I were to meet Lara like that and it was just a moment of pure joy and passion.
[00:12:05] So it tells you how young this guy actually is and what a talent he is. I think those are two
[00:12:11] my favorite social media moments this week. It is special and it's a good reminder for those
[00:12:15] of us who've seen these guys play test cricket, make centuries, grind it out. It's
[00:12:18] always just a good reminder that they're humans and in many cases they're kids,
[00:12:21] man. They're young. He's learning. He's going to be an unbelievable superstar for Team India
[00:12:27] and for Rajasthan or whatever franchise he settles in. But yeah, very well played and a
[00:12:32] good win. Then from there we went to Chennai. I thought it was super interesting because
[00:12:35] Rathuraj has been batting himself back into form as well if you will and made a brilliant
[00:12:42] century. I mentioned 179 was a bit of a joke and Marcus Stoinis comes out and makes 210
[00:12:48] look like a bit of a joke. First off, let me ask you a couple of questions. What is happening
[00:12:52] with Quinton de Kock? I've had him in my fantasy team the entire season. He's done nothing of
[00:12:57] note. I finally dropped him. Now he'll go make a century, I'm sure. But he's done nothing of
[00:13:01] note. He's really struggling at the top of the order. It's a big blow for Lucknow.
[00:13:06] Some of it probably has to do with the grounds being a little bit bigger. He's
[00:13:09] playing at Deccano, which is the biggest playing surface at the IPL. Plus the games
[00:13:15] come so thick and fast. Once you lose a little bit of form in the IPL, it's really
[00:13:21] hard to get back, which is why it was good to see the likes of Yashaswi and best to do that.
[00:13:27] I mean he's a great player. He got 500s in the last World Cup, ODI World Cup, after which he
[00:13:32] retired from ODI cricket. I don't know what it is. It takes a switch to flip and then
[00:13:42] they'll all just come out and smash runs again. But it's weird that in an IPL where
[00:13:48] batters are doing so well, he's one of the guys who hasn't cashed in.
[00:13:52] Correct. He's the guy whom you normally bank on getting big runs as an opener. But then,
[00:13:57] let me run through. Marcus Stonis came in with scores of 8, 10 and 8, with zero wickets,
[00:14:06] didn't bowl and then one wicket. So as an all-rounder, not a lot happening for him,
[00:14:10] this IPL. That was pretty true. He smashes an absolutely breathtaking 124, just 63 balls.
[00:14:18] He was batting against Pathy Rana, Mostafizor, I'm going to say it, but Shardul, Jadeja.
[00:14:28] Chennai's bowling is formidable and he just made them look like a high school bowling side.
[00:14:33] What an absolutely incredible knock. Then you have to worry about, as DJs,
[00:14:38] as Indian fans, this is always the conflict we have. We'll talk about this next guy in a
[00:14:42] second. But with Travis Head, Jake Fraser McGurk, Marcus Stonis and Mitchell Marsh
[00:14:48] assuming he's fit, is there any better T20 top four in the world?
[00:14:52] That's a bit crazy, isn't it? Someone mentioned somewhere. It's wild.
[00:14:56] It's become the Australia Premier League where it's the Australian players that just,
[00:15:01] I mean, other than Mitchell Stuck, or maybe their bowling is going to suffer a little bit.
[00:15:06] But yeah, they've been smashing it. It's been pretty impressive.
[00:15:13] Man, my heart take is that I think even though Mitchell Stuck got 24.5 crore from the IPL,
[00:15:18] I don't think he makes the Australia side. I think they're much more ruthless than we are
[00:15:22] in terms of promoting young talent, T20 specialists, et cetera. I think Spencer Johnson
[00:15:27] and these kinds of guys get a look ahead of Stuck. So that's going to be interesting to
[00:15:31] see as well. Right. From there, we went to another, I feel like I'm going to keep saying this this
[00:15:36] week, another very, very high scoring game. DJ, Delhi made 224 and I have to ask you about
[00:15:43] Rishabh Pant's, quote unquote, return to form if you call it that, eight sixes in a knock of
[00:15:49] 88 runs. I mean, I didn't get to catch it live. I watched the highlights. My text to you guys was
[00:15:55] how many of those sixes did he hit standing fully upright versus his signature style where
[00:16:01] he does to fall over and words. And I don't think he stood upright for a single one of them. He was
[00:16:04] swinging and falling over and that is vintage Rishabh Pant. I mean, the match went 224 credit
[00:16:10] to Akshay, credit to Tristan Stubbs at the end, but almost lost Delhi, almost lost us by
[00:16:15] making 224. How great was it to see Rishabh back? And he obviously scored in the next game as
[00:16:19] well. No, it was great to see him back particularly since we lost three wickets pretty
[00:16:23] early on, right? Like Magar didn't for once didn't fire. Yeah, 44 for three. Yeah. Yeah,
[00:16:29] 44 for three and looked like we were in a bit of trouble at 1.180 would have looked fine.
[00:16:34] But Rishabh and Akshay actually promoted up the batting order, great partnership and just
[00:16:41] like, I mean, just accelerated from nowhere. It is a small ground to be honest. The Ferozsha
[00:16:49] Kotla, the Erswell Ferozsha, they are on Jaitley's team. But the Delhi teams
[00:16:57] changed dramatically since starting to play at home. The small grounders actually helped their
[00:17:03] style of play and they've been scoring big and managing to defend it. And it kind of
[00:17:08] proves Varun's theory where he was absolutely disgusted that Pant chose to field first
[00:17:13] at the first game that they were playing at the Arun Jaitley stadium.
[00:17:17] And every time since then, Delhi have batted first and defended a huge score,
[00:17:22] just about in some cases here. There was 19 to get off the last over and Rashid Khan,
[00:17:28] who'd done it once before the season, I think against Punjab. I want to say Punjab, maybe not.
[00:17:34] I nearly took them home. But yeah, it was a great game for Delhi to win.
[00:17:40] And that was the game where Bhogle was talking to Gill after and said, man,
[00:17:44] it for a moment, it looked like you may as may not get it done. And Gill said,
[00:17:48] never doubt Gujarat, right? And in this case, Gujarat didn't make it and fell short and
[00:17:52] fell short again later this week. But yeah, I mean, it's good for the tournament, honestly,
[00:17:58] to see Delhi, RCB, et cetera, getting some wins. But the fact that 2-24 is still
[00:18:06] not a safe total is what's very, very scary. Last game I want to talk about before we take
[00:18:11] a quick break. You mentioned specifically Delhi backing themselves as a quote unquote bowlers side,
[00:18:17] bowlers can defend totals for us. And the reality is that's not necessarily true.
[00:18:23] Is the opposite, I don't have the stats in front of me, is the opposite true for
[00:18:25] the Hyderabad team where they just look like a different beast? Or I guess, yeah,
[00:18:30] they look like a different beast batting first versus chasing. It's a completely different
[00:18:34] side. Well, they've lost that previous game, chasing. That's what I mean. They're not a good
[00:18:41] chasing side. You get them out there with head and Abhishek Sharma in the power play and just
[00:18:45] be like, go score as many as you can. And they seem to be incredible. I mean, they took,
[00:18:49] you guys talked about it already so I won't beat a dead horse, but they had won the Delhi
[00:18:53] game by three overs. I think there were 70 something in three and a half overs and the
[00:18:57] game was done. There was no coming back from that. But when they're chasing, they seem to
[00:19:01] struggle a little bit. I think there's probably a little bit of recency bias there because we
[00:19:06] remember that one game where both the openers have failed, but that's going to happen when
[00:19:10] you play that kind of cricket, right? When you're going hell for leather as one of my favorite
[00:19:14] phrases is, which you always seem to enjoy. They failed. There's another test for them today
[00:19:22] because Chennai is 176 for two right now in 17 overs. So they're going to be chasing over
[00:19:26] 200 again. I don't think it's, I mean for years, Hyderabad were a bowling franchise with Rashid
[00:19:32] Khan and Mujeeb and those guys that would just like Bhovi and Natarajan and they would just
[00:19:39] like tie up one end or both ends actually. I don't think it, whether it's batting first
[00:19:47] or bowling first, Klaassen nearly did a crazy chase against, I want to say, I can't remember
[00:19:53] who it was, in the last over they just fell short by like two runs. It was at the start of the
[00:19:59] tournament where Klaassen had played a crazy length of 60 or like 12 balls or something.
[00:20:04] So yeah, I think they equally do into chasing as well. Let me give you the stats really
[00:20:10] quick. So at the time of recording this, they've played eight games. They have one,
[00:20:16] of the five that they won, four of them came batting first and one came chasing.
[00:20:22] Yeah, but hasn't Patka lost like the last six tosses or something as well?
[00:20:27] So has Ratharaj. I don't know how that math works. Who's winning all the tosses,
[00:20:30] but of the three that they lost, they lost batting first, two of them batting first.
[00:20:36] Okay. No, sorry, two of them chasing. So the data would suggest they're a better batting
[00:20:40] first side than chasing. But one of them was very close chasing because that was the Klaassen
[00:20:44] game. I don't know which one that was. They've lost that by like one or two runs in the
[00:20:47] last over. Yeah. So anyway, they played RCB this week. Let's talk quickly about
[00:20:53] again, another game, another Virat 50, another discussion about like, and let's talk about
[00:20:59] this. This just blew up, just blew up about a match losing knock because he made 51 or 43
[00:21:05] balls. The commentator's cliche as I keep referring to is don't judge an innings until
[00:21:11] both sides have batted. Right? That's standard. Don't judge a performance, don't judge a
[00:21:16] striker, et cetera. It looked like Virat had not scored too much exclusively by the way,
[00:21:21] because our man who Varun likes to call Rappa Rajat Patidar batted himself back into form again,
[00:21:27] made a 50 of 20 balls. And then Hyderabad didn't even come close. I mean, they felt
[00:21:31] 30 something run 35 runs short. Great bowling by the RCB team, which is not a statement
[00:21:36] I've thought I'd say. But I mean, suddenly you're sitting here saying for all the hate
[00:21:41] you got for making a 42 ball 50. Now it looked great on a pitch with the other team couldn't
[00:21:47] make contact. So how do you feel about that? And Kohli has obviously scored yet another
[00:21:51] 50. I think the theme of the week was Kohli got half centuries and they worked both times
[00:21:57] because he had somebody else batted well with him. And he's got half centuries earlier
[00:22:00] in the tournament too, and nobody else batted well. And it wasn't enough. But today or today
[00:22:05] at the time of recording, Will Jacks batted well against Hyderabad, Rajat Patidar batted
[00:22:10] well and Bangalore won both those games. So what's your take?
[00:22:14] So I've always maintained Kohli is the best anchor that India has got. He's the best out of
[00:22:19] Ritraaj, Devdak, Padikkal, Shubhman, Gail, K.L., Rahul, all of those guys. He's probably
[00:22:25] the best guy to bat at a 130-140 strike rate. It wasn't, it's not a great T20 knock when
[00:22:32] you're using up one third of the balls to score 51 runs. Because if you just multiply
[00:22:38] that by straight multiplication, you're going to get like 155-160 runs. Sure.
[00:22:44] So what it does need is for someone else to play a blind dad. Patidar did play that.
[00:22:49] I'm conflicted as to what it means for Team India because you've got so many anchors. And Sanjay
[00:22:54] Manjurekar actually has not picked Virat Kohli in his spot. Yeah, but he picked like four
[00:23:01] other anchors, which is just bizarre. It was just absolutely... I wonder whether that's a...
[00:23:06] Everything you said may be true, but if you are picking anchors, you have to pick him. Or you
[00:23:12] say, listen, go with the out of left field side. Abhishek to open and like just go
[00:23:18] Rinku and Dubey and Shashank and like just go really extreme, which I have respect for.
[00:23:24] But if you're picking anchors, you've got to pick Kohli. Yeah. And Bogle picked him in his
[00:23:29] side, which is the other big news of the week. Yeah. See, hindsight is 20-20, right? When you
[00:23:37] win when it's 51 or 42, you can be like, yeah, I knew that this was a pitch, whatever. But if
[00:23:42] you're lost by... If Head and Abhishek Sharma had got going and you lost by, I don't know,
[00:23:47] seven wickets with four overs to spare, then it looks like a bad inning. So you get even
[00:23:51] more crap. So let me jump ahead because we're not trying to go game by game. But in
[00:23:56] the game that just happened earlier today, Gujarat played RCB. Gujarat made 200 for three,
[00:24:00] not a bad total size. So Darshan looked pretty good. And RCB won with four overs to spare.
[00:24:06] I mean, but up until about 12 overs, it looked like they were on par for the chase.
[00:24:10] And again, I'm going to openly admit on this show, I'm biased pro-Kohli. I grew up watching
[00:24:17] him. I loved him. But he anchored that chase absolutely magnificently and enabled and
[00:24:24] supported Will Jackson to play with him. And Will Jackson batted brilliantly and ended up
[00:24:29] finishing it getting a century on the last ball with a six, four sixes off Rashid Khan,
[00:24:33] unheard of stuff. But my point is, DJ, do you know if you're allowed to select
[00:24:38] your 11 after the toss or before? Because I would select Virat in a chase every day of
[00:24:43] the week. And your point is absolutely valid in batting first. When in T20s, he probably
[00:24:47] doesn't accelerate quite enough. No, so you pick your side always before the toss.
[00:24:52] You submit your side. That's where there's some risk, right? Like if you could pick him
[00:24:56] when you're chasing, I think he walks into a side. But no, I mean, if you could pick him
[00:25:00] as an impact player, but you don't have an impact player in international cricket, do you?
[00:25:06] He's a perfect player. That is another discussion for us to have. Yeah. If you lose a wicket
[00:25:10] in the first over, Kohli plays, if you lose a wicket in the 11th over, then Dube walks
[00:25:15] in to smash it. I don't know, man. But you don't have that option in international
[00:25:19] cricket, which is why I think this impact player rule is not good for the Indian.
[00:25:26] And I read later actually after we said this on the podcast last week, apparently Rohit
[00:25:30] Sharma said the same thing that he was on some other podcast and stuff as well.
[00:25:37] Yeah. What? And he said it on some podcast. I don't know which one it was, but anybody
[00:25:41] knows how to get him? Ghillie's podcast. If anybody knows how to get him on ours,
[00:25:45] we would love to have him. Just win a few World Cups, be the best wicket keeper batter of all
[00:25:51] time. And then you can have Rohit Sharma on your podcast. I mean, I think Ghillie might
[00:25:58] even get M S Dhoni on a podcast one day. That would be insane, to be honest.
[00:26:05] That would be pretty amazing. All right, DJ, lots to talk and I'm going to try not to
[00:26:09] get us keep talking about the T20 World Cup selection, although that is what's on
[00:26:13] everybody's mind. Why don't we take a very quick break? We'll be right back and we'll talk about
[00:26:17] the rest of the week and everything that's going on in the IPL. Stay tuned, we will be right back.
[00:26:30] Welcome back to the Edges and Sledges cricket podcast. If you're watching us on YouTube,
[00:26:34] hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. And if you are listening to us on your favorite
[00:26:38] podcast app, give us a like or a review. We'd love to see those five stars come in. Send
[00:26:43] us emails at one tip one hand on all social media contact at one tip one hand.com.
[00:26:48] It's just, there's a lot going on, DJ. And we should actually probably at some point do a
[00:26:54] T20 special episode on either Virat or the role of anchors or structure, et cetera,
[00:26:59] because the reality of this situation is there's no right, there's no wrong. There's just
[00:27:04] subjectivity and opinions, right? So very, very interesting. But Bangalore did win that
[00:27:09] game against Hyde's about despite Virat making 51 of 43 balls. Right. We then went, we're like,
[00:27:17] okay, lots of high scoring games. I think there was already three or four. We've talked about
[00:27:20] innings that crossed 200. Then came DJ, the biggest successful chase in the history of the
[00:27:29] T20 format. Do you want to talk us through that a little bit? KKR batted first, basically
[00:27:34] probably thought they had it in the bag and then it just got stolen away from them.
[00:27:38] Yeah, this was absolutely unbelievable. I haven't got the scorecard in front of me,
[00:27:41] so you'll have to tell me what went on in terms of the actual scores. But Narayan got 70 odd,
[00:27:48] Phil Salt got 70. Narayan 71, Phil Salt 75. So 138 run partnership in the first 10 overs.
[00:27:56] And then Venky Iyer came in 169. Isn't Narayan about to get the orange cap?
[00:28:02] He must be in the running for it. Great question. Let me pull up where we are
[00:28:07] It can't be that far behind Kohli. Kohli's got 500 runs, I think. He is number seven. So he's
[00:28:11] 357 runs in his eight innings. What is his strike rate though? 184.02. It is the highest
[00:28:19] in all top 10. His number 11 on the list is Travis Head who's striking at 212. He didn't play
[00:28:25] the first game. Travis Head. Yeah, neither did Narayan. But I'm sure Narayan's Basra is the
[00:28:32] best of the lot by some distance. Actually, I'm sorry. Narayan didn't miss a game, but KKR has
[00:28:38] played one last game. That's what happened. Okay, fine. No, but I mean, Narayan and Salt,
[00:28:42] what a partnership they are. Over 100 runs that they put on to start with. Then Venky
[00:28:46] Iyer, as you said, went ballistic. And honestly, you would have thought that
[00:28:51] that's enough, right? 260 is two runs, 261 is two runs short than the highest ever score
[00:28:58] before the season's IPL, which is 263 by Bangalore. And so let's then put this in context.
[00:29:05] Prabh Simran comes out, smashes her like 17 ball 50. Johnny Bess, I can't even call him
[00:29:15] Bonnie. You can't say his name correctly. I was going to call him Johnny Bess. We could
[00:29:21] just call him Bonnie. It's fine. Bonnie turned Johnny, man. What a knock. And that look that he
[00:29:27] gave at the end of it was a great comment by Pavilion Opinions, which is a handle on Twitter,
[00:29:33] which said, Johnny has just given the exact same look all Brits give after a Friday
[00:29:38] afternoon at the pub, which is just like, I'm so done. But I mean, Johnny scores 100.
[00:29:45] I mean, incredible chase. Just a brilliant, brilliant chase. And this is what I had said
[00:29:52] in the Punjab preview, if you remember, which was this team has players that bat in one gear.
[00:29:59] And that's actually been proven right in the two games that they've chased down.
[00:30:04] That was the Ashutosh and Shashank game. That was one. They nearly did it again,
[00:30:07] the game after that. And then you saw this guy again. He scored the runs. I mean,
[00:30:12] is he going to, Ashwin, is he a dark horse in the running for the Indian team?
[00:30:18] Johnny Bairstow? Not Johnny Bairstow. Shashank.
[00:30:22] Man, I would say, to be honest, I'm always very torn because I would love to see him
[00:30:29] fast track, if you will. But also it is different. The IPL is different. It's a
[00:30:33] different quality. It's a different level. I mean, when you have 10 teams with seven
[00:30:38] Indian players each, it's going to be a slightly different, and the grounds are different.
[00:30:43] The West Indies in the US will spin more. So Shashank, I want to see him play. I'm not sure
[00:30:50] whether he's got quite enough game experience at this level to play, which is going to be a
[00:30:56] controversial take, I'm sure. But 68, again, I mean, he's made 46 not out. He's made 41 not
[00:31:02] out. If there was room for a, let's say if there was room for a dedicated number six and we didn't
[00:31:09] have the rinkoos and doobays and folks of the world waiting in the wings, I think he would get
[00:31:13] a look. By the way, if he could bowl two overs, I think he would definitely get a look.
[00:31:18] And that's part of the struggle. What about Nitish Reddy in that case?
[00:31:22] Yeah, Nitish is a good scene bowler. He opened the bowling.
[00:31:24] He hasn't. Yeah. So I mean, again, he hasn't batted quite enough either, but yeah,
[00:31:30] it's very interesting. I have nothing but the utmost respect for what Shashank Singh has done.
[00:31:35] That doesn't change by me saying, I'm not sure if he goes to the World Cup, but it's just been
[00:31:41] absolutely tremendous. Yeah, especially after the auction
[00:31:44] kaffa for, he's done pretty okay. Did you see, you want to share what I sent
[00:31:50] you that I found on Twitter from 2017 about this same Shashank Singh? And I know there
[00:31:55] are two and I clarified on that one. I think you deserve the honor of doing
[00:31:59] that one. Why don't you tell our listeners about this?
[00:32:04] In 2017, this very same Shashank Singh was picked up by none other than the
[00:32:09] Delhi Daredevils franchise for a base price of 10 lakhs. And now look at what he's doing
[00:32:16] for a different franchise. I mean, yeah, anyway. DJ, you can flip and go from being
[00:32:23] disappointed to being a little excited because at the time of us recording this,
[00:32:27] CSK is playing SRH as we talked. I guess it was just walked out.
[00:32:33] And I mean, I'm glad I don't have my speakers on behind because you would not be able to hear
[00:32:41] anything. Tala has walked out with four balls left.
[00:32:44] I actually think Ritu Raj has got out just because he has to let Tala bat at Chaipok.
[00:32:50] Got out for 98. Brilliant knock. It's really unlucky. But also, sorry, we should go back
[00:32:56] to the game that we were talking about, which is Narayan. Take out his 1 for 24 spell out of
[00:33:03] that Ashwin and what is the run rate for the rest of the game?
[00:33:09] That is too much math for me to do on the spot.
[00:33:11] It's 248 in 16. Over.
[00:33:13] 238 in 14.4. No, no, 24. 238 in 14.4. I mean, that is, let's see. Let's do a quick math.
[00:33:24] 238, 14.6. 16.2. Everybody else combined went for an economy rate of 16.2.
[00:33:33] That is unbelievable. Absolutely incredible. I mean,
[00:33:36] Narayan had the game of his life as Tala is now four off one ball. All right. This is not
[00:33:42] a live commentary podcast, so we will stop doing this at some point. But I'm clearly keeping track
[00:33:48] of it like you are. I mean, incredible. Do you want to ask about his strike rate again?
[00:33:53] No, it's 400 right now. Let's see. I'm just nervous that three balls he has to just get
[00:33:57] not out, man. Let's see. Let's keep going because we're going to run out of time here.
[00:34:03] We had a double header on Saturday, which was great first off because it was your own
[00:34:06] team playing DJ and because there have not been any double headers on Saturday,
[00:34:10] you forgot that it was happening. Yeah, because we've discussed how
[00:34:14] we missed double headers on Saturday. You sent a random text about Jake McGurk is going to
[00:34:19] definitely leave Delhi next season and I replied in like one second saying 10,000%. We are going
[00:34:27] to trade him for some rando and feel very happy with ourselves. And then I was saying this
[00:34:33] because he was scoring 84 of 27 and you had no idea. Yeah. So then I went back and said,
[00:34:39] what has happened here? And Bumrah has been taken apart by Jake. Unbelievable. Again,
[00:34:45] at their own JT stadium. I mean, it really just shows you and I was actually pretty upset after
[00:34:50] he got out because then we started consolidating and Shay Hope and Porel and Panth for a little
[00:34:56] bit played a little slower. But then I will give credit where it's due. Everybody did
[00:34:59] accelerate. I never thought I would expect to see Shay Hope make 41 of 17. Panth batted well
[00:35:05] as well. Tristan Stubbs seems to be really settling in nicely to this, if I may, Thala-esque type
[00:35:11] role where he's a little bit longer innings than Thala, but he'll come in for four or five
[00:35:16] remaining overs and just hit some boundaries and not get out. And I can confirm by the way,
[00:35:23] at the time of recording this, that Dube has hit a six on the penultimate ball,
[00:35:26] which means Dhoni will not face again, which means he will remain not out one more time.
[00:35:33] You know what's going to happen, right? He's going to get out once and it's going to be in
[00:35:37] the final just so his bathra can go through the roof because it'll be his average play.
[00:35:44] I mean, isn't it technically infinity right now? Which is already true.
[00:35:47] Right now it is, but he'll get out once. He'll get out once.
[00:35:49] Yeah, that's fair.
[00:35:53] DJ, Delhi versus Bombay, you know at Arun Jaitley, no matter runs is safe, right? 257
[00:36:00] and really truly at a point it looked like Mumbai would chase it down. I mean,
[00:36:05] I won't go through all the details. They played a blinder. Harzik actually looked pretty good,
[00:36:09] which is the first time he's looked like the big six hitter that we've seen. But again,
[00:36:13] you can argue it's a small ground against not the best bowling lineup, et cetera.
[00:36:18] Tim David came and hit some boundaries, but the turning point was at one point in the,
[00:36:23] I think it was the last over, the last over, first ball of the last over,
[00:36:26] they like hits the ball along the ground to the boundary. Sumit Kumar, who is our all router,
[00:36:31] who hasn't really done too much for Delhi, but picks up the ball at the boundary and
[00:36:38] throws in an absolute bullet from the boundary line right above the bales, exactly where you
[00:36:46] learned in school cricket, you want the ball to be for run out throw. And they like dives
[00:36:51] full stretch and his run out. Great work by Panth whipping off the bales. I mean, that was
[00:36:56] Sumit and Panth was a Jereja Dhoni-esque moment in terms of fielding, right? Just a brilliant throw
[00:37:00] and bales whipped off in a flash. That was the turning point. They arguably could have done it
[00:37:05] and he probably made the right decision trying to stay on strike. But it was a Mukesh Kumar
[00:37:11] last over. Mukesh had gone for runs as much as he's a death bowling specialist. I mean,
[00:37:15] those are the moments that change these games, right at this level.
[00:37:17] Yeah, absolutely. Sorry, I've just been distracted by Dhoni running off the field.
[00:37:22] So one of the things you've noticed this season is how he walks super slowly onto the field,
[00:37:29] but runs off every time he's hit it. It's just... He's got to go put on his keeping
[00:37:35] pants, man. Yeah, I mean, that's going to be his excuse, but it's just too good, man.
[00:37:39] It's just too good. Sorry. Yeah. What were we talking about? Mukesh Kumar.
[00:37:46] Like getting run out as a turning point. And Mukesh Kumar has done this twice in two
[00:37:50] two games, but we should talk about Rasik. He has taken wickets. He has bowled well,
[00:37:57] nailed those yorkers, kept his nerve on a small ground, bowled those kind of back of the hands,
[00:38:03] lower ones and stuff. So I mean, the dynamic has changed. Ever since Magur came in,
[00:38:08] Rasik's come in, 11 has changed a lot from the start. And somehow we seem to have scratched
[00:38:16] our way to number five. Now, when we started this season, Varun was guaranteed 10. And he
[00:38:21] didn't get much opposition from either of us. This is the high point of our season right now.
[00:38:26] We're six weeks in, 60% of the IPL is done. Pant may have jinxed it by saying, oh,
[00:38:32] we have a good chance at the playoff, but we're taking it game by game or some MS Dhoni
[00:38:38] type process is important to forget the result type of stuff. I don't realistically think
[00:38:45] they're still going to make the playoffs. No, it would be a miracle if they did.
[00:38:53] I mean, if you look at four games, four games, KKR who beat them by 106 runs last time,
[00:39:02] Rajasthan who beat them last time, RCB could be a close match. That'll probably actually end
[00:39:07] up being a almost some sort of a knockout type of match. And then Lucknow.
[00:39:15] So not, I mean, not a shoe in by any stretch. But full credit, by the way, to Rasek. The same
[00:39:23] math you did, by the way, on Narayan's spell in a game where Delhi's bowlers gave 247. Rasek
[00:39:29] picked up three wickets and only gave 34 runs. Like went at eight and a half and over
[00:39:34] where the rest of the bowlers combined went for probably 13, 14. I mean,
[00:39:38] truly, truly a magnificent spell. And back-to-back games. I didn't talk about
[00:39:43] them in the early game. You can tell even for how much we've talked about batting,
[00:39:46] that this has been a batting dominated IPL. And one of our listeners actually,
[00:39:51] Arundham wanted us to talk about what's going on there. So this is the guy out of the season,
[00:39:59] I won't be preparing pitches to favor the home side. And it's just been one batting pitch
[00:40:05] after the other where the home side is around absolutely a mark. Although they backfired
[00:40:11] against Bonnie and Clyde. Yeah. Man, I think if you're trying to prepare
[00:40:22] pitches that suit your team, it has to be something very specific. Like I don't think
[00:40:28] in this IPL saying I'm going to lay out a flat track because we have big hitters works
[00:40:32] because every team has big hitters. I mean, you could argue on paper Punjab,
[00:40:36] Hyderabad, etc. would all out hit KKR on a flat track. I think if you're saying I want to prepare
[00:40:43] a spinning track and we're going to play three spinners or something, or you have to be much
[00:40:49] more specific than that. I think just saying I'm going to lay out a road does not work for
[00:40:54] a team like KKR, unfortunately. Yeah. All right. DJ, second match of the
[00:40:58] the Saturday doubleheader, if you will. Again, nothing crazy to write home about. 196, you're
[00:41:05] thinking Lucknow made. Normally, you would have said that's pretty good. Rajsan chased it down
[00:41:10] absolutely brilliantly. Let me quickly ask you about Sanju Samson making 71 off 33.
[00:41:14] And the celebration was really something. And then on the other end of the pitch with him
[00:41:19] was Dhruv Jarell who had a magnificent half century too. I mean, arguably they're competing
[00:41:24] for a spot in the World Cup, etc. as backup keeper and things like that. But there was a
[00:41:28] great hug. There was a great celebration from Samson. I mean, whatever happens from here on,
[00:41:33] we've joked and again, we're a little bit mean sometimes. We've joked about the fact that Sanju
[00:41:38] usually has good starts to the IPL and then fizzles out. He is anything but fizzled this
[00:41:43] time. Whatever happens from here on, he has made the best possible case he could
[00:41:48] for team India selection, right? Yeah. It would be a travesty if Sanju
[00:41:53] Samson was not picked for this particular T20 World Cup. It would be a failure of the
[00:41:58] selection process because he has done everything he can. He's batted with responsibility. He's
[00:42:05] batted attacking. He's batted at a strike rate of over 150. He's been fantastic in a
[00:42:13] lineup with Butler and he stood out as well. And I don't know if he's the backup keeper,
[00:42:19] Ashwin, actually. I think he might be the playing 11 keeper. I don't know if Panth has
[00:42:26] done enough, proved enough to make his way back in. I don't think Jereld is in. I think
[00:42:31] it's between Panth, Rahul and Samson and it'll go down to the roles that these guys play.
[00:42:37] I think Rahul may struggle because of where he's batted this IPL. So you think Kishan,
[00:42:43] sorry, let's just rule out everybody else. Kishan's out. Yeah, Kishan's out.
[00:42:48] Jereld obviously. Who else is in the running? That's really it, right?
[00:42:54] It's those three and I think Rahul's batted. He's opened the batting. If he'd have a bat in
[00:42:59] the middle order, he'd have a shot. I think Panth has put himself ahead of Rahul with these
[00:43:04] last few knocks because he's shown himself to be fit enough to play a long enough innings.
[00:43:09] And T20 might be his way back into international cricket because it's a shorter game.
[00:43:13] But Samson's kept well behind the wickets as well. He's dived, he's taken some brilliant
[00:43:18] catches. Panth has as well. So I think those two guys will go to the World Cup.
[00:43:25] And I think right now, I mean, it may come down to left hand, right hand.
[00:43:30] I don't know what Samson is on a brilliant job. It may be that they're battling out for
[00:43:37] that number four spot, realistically. And both of them are batting in that rough area. So
[00:43:45] it's down to those two guys and I mean Samson's. I actually think you mentioned it. Lefty,
[00:43:51] righty may matter, et cetera. But for me, it'll probably come down to batting position.
[00:43:56] And I think it comes down to do you think about four as more like three or four is more
[00:44:00] like five? And that sounds like a trivial question. And it's not. But because Panth has
[00:44:04] been batting four slash five and Samson is pretty consistently batted three. And I think
[00:44:10] three plays more quick bowling, more likely to play in the power play, et cetera. Four slash
[00:44:16] five more likely to play later, more fielders on the boundary, more spin, et cetera. So it's
[00:44:21] going to be very, very interesting. But I'm with you. I think those two have sort of
[00:44:25] really nailed down their two positions, if you will, in the short list. And as of last
[00:44:31] week, I'm not sure if Panth was there. Yeah. Yeah. I think Rahul was very last. But I almost
[00:44:37] wonder whether there's a case for one of them playing as a batter because Pandya has lost form
[00:44:44] with the bat. Is he to bat at five? That's the question, right? Like he has in the
[00:44:50] last two seasons batting for Gujarat Titans. He struggled a bit. He will still make the
[00:44:55] 11. He has to because he balances the 11 too much. But maybe there's a case for dropping
[00:45:00] him one further down with no Rahul. Maybe Panth and Samson could both play. Yeah. I think the only
[00:45:07] potential exception is if you really feel like they're truly going to spin a lot and you need
[00:45:12] a third spinner in those conditions, then you're playing two quicks, boomerang and call it second
[00:45:17] quick, whoever it is. And then you play Jadidia Akuldip as a specialist. What do you think?
[00:45:24] Maybe. I mean, he's both great, but in terms of like, as he hasn't really been
[00:45:29] in the picture for a while for the national side. But then my point was at call it six and seven,
[00:45:35] you could play Jadidia and Anaksha. And now you've got two batters. Anaksha's batted pretty well
[00:45:40] in this IPL as well generally and some recency bias there. But anyway, we're going to run out
[00:45:46] of time. I know there's a lot we can talk about. We talked about the last game that
[00:45:49] happened, Gujarat versus Bangalore. Phenomenal century by Will Jacks. Excellent, excellent
[00:45:54] half century by Virat as well. And it just brings you so much joy to see a batter watch
[00:45:59] his teammate and celebrate for his teammate. You've seen that happen a lot, right? Avesh
[00:46:05] has done it a couple of times on the other end when Rajasthan had finished. But to see Koli
[00:46:10] celebrating Will Jacks. Will Jacks on 94 with the scores tied at Russian Kanbolic and he
[00:46:16] hits him for six to bring out his first IPL century. I mean, tremendous. It's been
[00:46:22] a good week overall. DJ, how is your fantasy team doing before we wrap up this week's episode?
[00:46:27] Let me just share what's going on. Not bad. Rathraj was my vice captain just now,
[00:46:31] so not too bad. Rathraj is my captain now, so that'll help.
[00:46:35] Okay. Let's- I had Koli as captain too. So not so great. But in our edges and sluggish
[00:46:42] fan league, top place is Once108. Second place is Uncle Sam and third place is Bishnoi Boy,
[00:46:49] which is all great team names. DJ, as I try to scroll down the list, Varun is slightly ahead of
[00:46:53] both of us. He's in 17th place. You're in 21st place. You're in 21st. I'm still languishing
[00:47:01] a little far down at 42nd, but it's a long season. There's time to go. So even if you're
[00:47:06] not doing so well, hang in there, keep making your changes, use your boosters well,
[00:47:10] and that'll bring your fantasy season back to life. DJ, this has been fun, man. It's been
[00:47:17] good. Now you get to go watch Thala keep and see if Chennai can get a win. I think if CSK
[00:47:22] get this winning against Hyderabad, it'll make the points table very, very interesting.
[00:47:25] As Delhi fans, we want Chennai to win this one because it brings- I took two, three teams
[00:47:32] have to run away with everything and then you're battling for the fourth spot or you want
[00:47:37] it to be super even. Yeah, I don't know, man, because if CSK win this, they go ahead of
[00:47:42] Delhi. They go to 10, right? No, but they go to 10. But they've got one game in hand. If
[00:47:46] they lose the next one, then we'll be tied. I mean, I'm just happy Delhi won 50% of their
[00:47:52] games. It's insane. I mean, one out of the first five and four out of the next five,
[00:47:57] pretty good trend. All right. Not a bad one. If you lose four out of the next four, that'd be
[00:48:01] great. It would be excellent, but we will see. We've been Delhi fans for too long. We know
[00:48:06] what's possible, what's realistic. We know what's coming. All right. Thank you everybody
[00:48:10] for listening. This has been a lot of fun. We love doing the IPL episodes. As I said
[00:48:14] earlier, hit that like button, hit the subscribe button, contact us at one tip one hand on all the
[00:48:19] socials. We'll be back next week to talk a little bit more about the IPL as we get into the run,
[00:48:24] into the playoffs. By next week, we'll probably know if some teams have been
[00:48:28] eliminated already and some have guaranteed qualification. Grunge sounds pretty much all
[00:48:32] said. Thank you everybody for joining us. We'll be back next week. This has been
[00:48:37] the Edges and Sledges Cricket Podcast.