Amit Mishra may have just bowled two overs on the night, but Delhi Capitals (DC) assistant coach Mohammad Kaif felt, the experienced wrist-spinner played a very crucial role in his team's victory over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Saturday (October 3) by dismissing their in-form opener Shubman Gill.
Mishra got Gill out for 28 as he was just beginning to use the long handle. The willy old leggie couldn't bowl more than two overs after sustaining a finger injury but did enough to give DC a good start in their ultimately successful defence of 228/4 they had put on in the first half in Match 16 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020.
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"Mishra has been playing the IPL for many years. Shubman Gill's wicket was very crucial; he is someone who likes to play till the end, and the way Mishra bowled to Gill, it was great to see. Rabada had an off day. Overall, it was a complete game," Kaif said in a virtual post-match press conference, as quoted by ANI.
Apart from Mishra, comeback man Ravichandran Ashwin (0/26) also managed to bowl just two overs, but that was down to how he had been batted against on return following his shoulder injury.
In order to make up those overs, Delhi found a saviour in all-rounder Marcus Stoinis (1/46), who had one very expensive over while bowling to KKR's lower-order batsman Rahul Tripathi, but overall did his job quite commendably in DC's 18-run win, dismissing Tripathi later in the 20th over to end the contest.
"The way Tripathi played was surprising. He has not gotten many chances in the tournament so far; he looked very good. It was touch and go, very tight in the end. Sharjah offers you high-scoring games. At the end of the day, we had a good game," said Kaif.
"Marcus Stoinis has been bowling well in this tournament. Whenever he has had the ball in his hand, he has looked comfortable. He has been bowling 135kmph consistently. We knew he had to bowl 2-3 overs in the game against KKR."
"Stoinis looked good in the nets as well and we had no doubts that he will come good in the last over, especially the yorker to Tripathi was right up there," he added.
Pacers Harshal Patel (2/34) and Anrich Nortje (3/33) were outstanding with the ball. The game, however, was set-up in the first half where DC batsmen, skipper Shreyas Iyer (88), opener Prithvi Shaw (66) and power-hitter Rishabh Pant (36), batted tremendously well. Shaw's partner Shikhar Dhawan (26) also did his bit in laying a nice foundation with their first-wicket stand of 56 runs.
"Sharjah is a high-scoring game. We spoke to the batters before the game to probably show some more intensity in the powerplay, and we got that from Shikhar and Shaw. Shaw played a fantastic knock. We know how dangerous he can be in the powerplay," Kaif said.
"We had no target in mind. We had to get momentum on our side in the powerplay. The way Shikhar and Shaw started and then Iyer finished with a brilliant knock, it was a team effort; and the batters had the intent to play shots. This game, we had to go hard and score big runs," he added.
