BENGALURU: On Thursday evening, around the time Mo Bobat said some of the pitches at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium were indifferent, the groundsmen were extensively watering the square, including the strip selected for Friday's match between the hosts and Gujarat Titans.
With the summer showing no signs of relenting and pre-monsoon showers a few weeks away, they didn't want the deck to be overly dry for Titans' visit. In the pitch report, it was obvious that there wasn't going to be any prodigious turn. So, while Suyash Sharma and Krunal Pandya gave away plenty, B Sai Sudharsan finally found some form after an indifferent start to his campaign. One zero and four scores of below 25 in his first six games of the season had represented a below par start for the southpaw. Normally very consistent without ever being flashy, his loss of form was proving to be problematic for the franchise.
Because Titans rely a lot on their top three, they were looking a bit lost without the 24-year-old's returns. On Friday night, their batting unit looked like their former selves. No surprise that it coincided with the southpaw's welcome return to form, a sparkling third ton in the Indian Premier League (IPL). And it came in a very Sudharsan-esque way. All velvety touch, an array of cuts. Even his sixes were as a result of using his bat as a means to either scoop the ball over the keeper or cut errant wide deliveries over third man.
On a deck which could have been a highway, Bhuvneshwar Kumar found some early shape but once that disappeared, Sudharsan seized the initiative. The bowlers were a touch short and a wide to him but he didn't turn down the invitation to hit in the area between the keeper and backward point. Out of the 100 he scored, he scored 40 in that area in boundaries. His first boundary in that area came off a genuine edge but post that, he cut and slashed with authority.
Hazlewood has generally managed to keep it tight in the powerplay for this franchise but Sudharsan climbed into him off his second over. The Australian, who had a change of ends, stuck to his back of a length delivery. Sudharsan exposed his stumps and scooped it. It just evaded the diving Jitesh Sharma. Three balls later, he was on his toes as he cut the ball over backward point for six. A late cut for another four had put the seal on a big over for the visitors.
He was timing it so well but also had the game awareness. So, when Krunal Pandya went to his famous party trick — the bouncer — he jumped up and deposited into the stands behind square on the off side. It was just the tonic they needed after a fairly sedate start to the innings; 20 for none after three overs. Shubman Gill may have been among the runs but in an era of turbo-hitting in the powerplay, he has generally preferred to trust his own methods. Here, his method was to trust Sudharsan to do the heavy lifting.
So much so that at the end of the powerplay, he had only faced seven deliveries. Sudharsan usually found a single off the last ball of the over but Gill was happy to rotate the strike whenever he was given strike. This symbiosis is why Titans have had a lot of success at the top. Their method like Vikram Solanki had mentioned in the pre-match press conference on Thursday. "We trust in a method, in a formula, we trust in the players that we have in delivering that method and that formula," the director of cricket had said. "That, by the way, is no slight on the way the other people play as well, you know. The other teams are well within their right to play as they do."
Post that first-wicket partnership off 128 in 12.4 overs, though, they slightly lost their way before stumbling their way to 205. Bengaluru, with their more bravura approach to batting, showed there's more than one way to skin this, registering a five-wicket win.
