CHENNAI: Pat Cummins’ record in death overs is no secret. In 26 innings, he has operated at 10.23 RPO in death overs in the Indian Premier League. But, on Wednesday, against Mumbai Indians, it was different. Going into the final four overs, Cummins had bowled three, conceding 26 runs up until then. On a pitch that had a bit of extra bounce, the Australian Test skipper, along with Umesh Yadav and Rasikh Salam had bowled extremely well in the first half of the innings.
Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma had accelerated since and Mumbai was pushing towards the 150-run mark when Cummins came on to bowl the final over. First ball, full and wide, Suryakumar edges one behind. In comes Pollard. Cummins delivers a wide yorker, dugout for two. Another wide yorker follows, but this time Pollard was ready for it. He gets under it and smacks it over long-on. Eight off three.
Cummins tries to go wider and bowls a wide, forcing him to change the length for the next. A couple of runs followed off the fourth. 11 off four deliveries against Pollard isn’t all that bad. But the story wasn’t over. The pacer went short and wide, Pollard pulled with all his might only to top-edged it over third-man for a six. 17 off five now. Cummis reacts and goes fuller. Pollard once again goes hard and this time the leading edge brings the same result.
In an over where he did hardly anything wrong, Cummins ended up conceding 23 runs from five balls and a wicket. From 138 for three, Mumbai went on to finish with 161/4. But he knew, such things happen in the shortest format.
“Welcome to T20 cricket,” he would say after the match, before adding, “we would have taken 160 at the start of the innings.”
In fact, at that point, he wouldn’t have known that his more significant performance in the match was yet to come.
Mumbai had reduced Kolkata to 101/5 in 13.1 overs. Tymal Mills had removed Andre Russell. Venkatesh Iyer was still batting, but they still needed 61 runs from 41 balls. In comes Cummins and sneaks a single of his first. That was the only inconsequential ball of the innings. From there one, every ball he faced was an event.
The fifth ball of that over was on the slot and Cummins smacked it over the shorter boundary on the leg side for six. Mills went fuller and wider. Cummins followed, slicing it between gully and third-man for a four.
Mumbai still had two overs of Jasprit Bumrah. But that didn’t bother the Australian. He played out a couple of deliveries before launching the Indian pacer over deep-midwicket. Much like Mills, Bumrah, too, went full and wide, but an outside edge was enough for Cummins to secure a boundary. By the end of that over, the equation had come down to 35 off 30 with Cummins batting at 22 from 8 balls. It seemed like it was his day with the bat. And everything he’s touched would turn gold.
What followed was just madness. Rohit Sharma brought Daniel Sams and Cummins was ready for it. Six, four, six, six followed off his bat, all on through the leg-side. The chase was all but done in those four deliveries. The pressure led Sams to bowl a no-ball, off which Cummins scored just two, thanks to Suryakumar’s effort on the ropes.
A four and a six followed as Cummins brought up the joint-fastest fifty ever in the IPL, smashing 35 runs in that over. It was an exhibition of ball striking, especially against pace. From 101/5 after 13.1, Kolkata went to 162/5 in just 18 balls.
Mumbai had one over of Murugan Ashwin left at that point. They could have used him against Cummins, but it was all irrelevant as their head coach Mahela Jayawardene said after the match.
“Hindsight is a great thing, but with short leg-side boundaries, Cummins could hit those sixes with the equation that was there. Maybe, we could have stuck with those hard lengths rather than using variations,” he said after the match.
Maybe Ashwin could have made a difference, maybe not. Either way, the way Cummins started with the bat, it was just one of those days where all one could say was that the knock was just meant to be.
Brief Scores: MI 161/4 in 20 overs (Suryakumar 52, Tilak 38 n.o; Cummins 2/49) vs KKR 162/5 in 15 overs (Cummins 56 n.o, Venkatesh 50 n.o)