Strike rate! Strike rate! Strike rate! – In this 21st Century, the only thing that the cricketing world is concerned about is the strike rate of a Batter. The gentlemen’s game has evolved so much in the past few decades that the gentlemen’s game has become a mental man’s game! No kidding, just imagine a situation where a batter has played 5 dot balls in a row in a T20 Match. Yes, 5 dot balls in a row in 20 over battle! Just hearing this statement would make the T20 cricket enthusiast go crazy. So much that, the so called “Cricket fans”, or Rather I should say, “Just T20 Fanatics” might have already closed the window of this blog!
So, the real cricket fans, please stand up! Please stand up! In this ERA of strike rates above 150+, A steady innings or A rescue innings by a batter isn’t much appreciated by the cricketing world and is termed as a tuk tuk innings. Imagine a situation, where a team is struggling at 24-4 after 5.6 overs, Even the most loyal fans would call it curtains for their favorite team. The opener is still at the crease and playing with a strike rate of 95 at that time, All the fans & the cricketing pundits would say “Yaar ekto maarlee ya fir out hoja” but the batsman who shows grit & determination plays out the difficult situation and trusts his own skills sets, Shows belief his ability that he can recover from this strike rate of below 100 to maybe strike at 150+ when the correct time comes and take his team to a respectable total and guess what!! The icing on the cake would be when the team who was 24-4 at one stage and ends up winning it because of that one gritty innings!
Thank god we do not have to imagine such situation neither do we have to imagine such batters. Because, we have actually have seen this live! Seen this gritty innings come true! – Yes, this situation which I just made you all imagine actually happened in a game between the 2 Champions of IPL, CSK vs Mumbai Indians. After 5.6 overs when MSD got out, CSK were struggling at 24-4, when Ruturaj gaikwad, the opener was playing at a strike rate of below 100 and with his superb & gutsy knock filled with self-belief was able to take his teams total above 150 runs and gave his bowlers some runs to play with. At the end of the day, that critical innings turned out to be a match winning innings as CSK beat Mumbai Indians by 20 RUNS! Yes, you heard that right, Many CSK fans might have gone into nostalgia mode, and why not, that innings by Ruturaj, deserves to be remembered for ages to come!
A steady innings, A ship saving innings, A good leave when the ball is swinging bananas, the batters are smelling the leather and just ducking to save their heads! Though, we don’t tend to appreciate such innings much in today’s modern age and generation and troll the batters by terming them as test innings or tuk tuk innings but such innings shows the real mental strength and the belief a batter has over his skill set that he can recover in the latter stages and win it for his team. This was one of the many innings which stayed with me from the last 2 IPL Seasons, there were many such – Pollards swashbuckling 87 of 34, Faf du Plessis 1st game as RCB captain, 88 off 55, where he was striking at 88 once. Dhoni’s 51 of 38, where he was at 9 of 19 balls.
Let us know in the comment section below, which was the ship steadying innings or a slow starter but ended with a bang innings which has been stuck in your memories and stands apart those 200+ strike rate innings! I bet, there would be many more.