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Synopsis: Little-known Aussie hero Jake Fraser-McGurk and familiar show-stealer Kuldeep tango a campaign-lifting victory for Delhi Capitals over Lucknow Super Giants, who suffered their second defeat
Only the stats nerd would instantly recognise Jake Fraser-McGurk. The 22-year-old became the fastest century maker in List A cricket last year when he reached the three-figure mark in merely 29 balls, for South Australia against Tasmania, in a futile chase of 436. However, IPL is a quicksand that has drowned several record-setting overseas batsmen.
Fraser-McGurk, though, made an emphatic impression on his debut, rattling off 55 power-drilled runs in 35 balls, pursuing 168 for Delhi’s second win of the season. If handing him the cap was a surprise, shocking was to see him walk in after the fall of David Warner, his idol. There is a bit of Warner in him, in the shuddering power he generates from his enormous bat-swing and forearms, and the attacking spirit. He counterpunched straightaway, heaving the second ball he faced, off Yash Thakur, for a six over deep mid-wicket. He raced away to 16 off seven balls, a brutal maximum off Arshad Khan setting him off to a flier.
After the storm came the lull. In hindsight, this was his nervous teething phase in the league. A combination of slow pitch and clever bowling reduced his stroll into a stagger. Slower balls and cutters are not his best friends. He enjoyed a slice of fortune too—beginner’s luck if you can call it—when the usually splendid Ravi Bishnoi shelled a sitter at cover on 25. Two balls later, upon the reintroduction of Krunal Pandya, he creamed three successive sixes, each a shot of cold-eyed violence.
The onslaught came just after Rishabh Pant’s blaze of boundaries, wherein the Capitals’ captain had plundered 19 off seven balls, reversing the momentum Super Giants were gathering. Fraser-McGurk—the rare double-barreled name will take some getting used to—would then effectively kill the game. The 21-run over effectively sealed the game’s destiny, before he and Pant combined for another 15-run over. Though both did not survive long enough to hit the winning runs, their 77-run association had put Delhi on an unstoppable course.
This was a game where everything aligned for Delhi, from the promising debut of Fraser-McGurk to the form of Prithvi Shaw, whose scything 32 off 22 balls tone-set Capitals’ pursuit of 168. The prime architect of the game, though, was Kuldeep Yadav, returning from a brief hiatus, and resuming his renaissance act.
Magical Kuldeep
The googly that slithered through the gate of Nicholas Pooran, reducing him to a baffled imposter, would enter IPL immortality; the Marcus Stoinis googly was a piece of shrewd perfection; but the ball that really told the genius lurking beneath the mop of unkempt curls, was the slider that nailed KL Rahul, the Super Giants talisman, batting with smooth conviction.
Lucknow: Delhi Capitals’ Kuldeep Yadav celebrates the wicket of LSG batter Nicholas Pooran during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 T20 cricket match between Lucknow Super Giants and Delhi Capitals at Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium, in Lucknow, Friday, April 12, 2024. (PTI Photo/Vijay Verma)
To consume Rahul when playing the cut takes some expertise. Rahul has quick hands, that delectably deflects the ball to the fence. It is as though he has trained every cell of his to perfect the stroke. Few unlock the cut variants as emphatically as he does. So when Kuldeep dropped the length a bit (he is now a master of shuffling lengths and changing speed without any alterations to his run-up or action), fed it wide, almost like a bait, Rahul couldn’t resist his impulses. There was no reason why he should have. But this one was brisker—clocked 89 kph, whereas the average speed was around 84-85 kph, kept a bit low, slid away with the angle, and grazed the bottom of his bat. It was a piece of subtle rather than spectacular art. More Mozart than Metallica. The wicket broke the back of Super Giants, plunging them further into the abyss (77-5), before Ayush Badoni’s late blitz (55 from 35) resurrected them, though eventually the youngster’s splendid effort couldn’t avert the fate.
The spectacular had winked earlier in the piece, in Kuldeep’s first over. Two immaculate googlies snared Marcus Stoinis and Nicholas Pooran, the two power-hitters in Super Giants’ middle order. The Stoinis one was slower (85kph), tossed up, and spun a trifle away from the right-hander, who swung blindly to his own peril. Stoinis misjudged the ball’s delicious drop and was a fraction earlier into the shot, and ended up lobbing the ball. Safe to assume that he had little clue about the characteristics of the delivery.
Neither did Pooran, who wishfully hung out his bat to where he presumed was the line of the ball. The ball might have seemed like an illusion, drifting away from him, then dropping suddenly, as though the laws of gravity suddenly woke up, and then turning through the gaping space between his bat and pad. Kuldeep was the magic dust that Capitals desperately required to save another season from drifting away into pain, apart from pulling them up from the bottom space.
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