The Fourth Innings

Cricket | T20 | T20I | India | South Africa | South Africa Tour of India, 2022 | 2022 T20 World Cup Crowds' chants and cheering will be volume high as India prepare to take on the Proteas on 9th June in Delhi as part of the five-match T20I series. With BCCI allowing 100% attendance across all the five venues, things seem to be returning to normal. This series if necessary will throw some light on the youngsters as they desperately prepare for claiming a flight to Australia for the T20 World Cup later this year. Earlier, the selectors decided to rest some stalwarts including Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah for this series. This meant that the reigns of captaincy be handed to the multi-dimensional KL Rahul. RCB's wicketkeeper batsmen Dinesh Karthik & GT's captain Hardik Pandya are returning to the Indian side.  What is DK's role? There have been a lot of speculations on DK's role. While I think, he certainly gets a spot in the setup, how is the team g...

"In every cricketer’s career, some days when you come out... it’s just your day, manufactured by god and given to you. Whatever you do, nothing can go wrong. Perhaps, that innings was like that for me." ~Kapil Dev, via Scroll The rest of us dream of stuff like this. Kapil Dev lived it. It is ironic how it will forever be etched on our memories. A perfect cricket innings, and an even perfect script. India needed a win against Zimbabwe to remain in good stead for Semifinals qualification in the 1983 Cricket World Cup. Two deliveries into the 20th match of the tournament, India lost Sunil Gavaskar, caught behind off Peter Rawson - 0/1. Kris Srikkanth followed, losing his wicket to Kevin Curran - 6/2. Rawson then got Mohinder Amarnath out on 5 - 5/3. Sandeep Patil too could not do much glancing a leg-side delivery to wicket-keeper Dave Houghton - 9/4. Kapil Dev was the next batsman in but the collapse wasn't over as Yashpal Sharma gave Rawson his third wicket of the match -...

Cricket | T20I | T20 | IPL | IPL 2022 | RCB | Virat Kohli Every cricket, IPL and RCB fan wants Virat Kohli to score runs. A trademark Kohli innings is a lesson in batting with all of defence, taking singles and hitting boundaries executed to perfection. It is paced brilliantly and there is minimal risk involved with orthodox cricketing shots. I have not come across a more complete batsman in all my cricket following. Oh, the elegance of that cover drive, him holding his pose as the ball races to the boundary, and then fist-punching his partner as the bowler stands in despair. I miss that. I miss the old Virat Kohli. I am not going to argue over whether it is his misfortune or just poor form. The truth is he is not scoring runs in this IPL season. Him taking out his frustration while looking up into the sky after his dismissal v PBKS summed up the emotions of most of us. It is just not happening for him and however much you want to hold on to him, he is giving lesser and lesser reasons ...

Cricket | T20 | IPL | IPL 2022 | Gujarat Titans At the end of IPL Auction 2022, I too like other cricket pundits started writing down the best XIs for every IPL team. When I came to the Gujarat Titans squad, I asked myself, "Is Gujarat Titans a good team?" That is when a few thoughts crept up in my mind. Who was going to bat at 3? Will Hardik Pandya be forced to bat out of position? Are Rahul Tewatia and David Miller good enough to take them over the finish line every time? They have got Mohammed Shami, Lockie Ferguson and Rashid Khan, but what after them? Like many, I too discounted the team from 2022 IPL Playoffs contention and focused on stronger looking teams. But today, I stand corrected. Hemant Brar  summed up Gujarat Titans' campaign quite nicely for me:" If Tewatia won't, David Miller will. If Miller won't, Rashid Khan will. If Rashid won't, someone else surely will. " That's been the story for the Gujarat Titans this season. They have fo...

Cricket | T20I | 2022 T20 World Cup | India | T20 | IPL | IPL 2022 | RCB | Dinesh Karthik  Finishing cricket matches for RCB in IPL and keeping wickets. 285 runs at a strike rate of 192.56. No it's not AB de Villiers, it is our very own Dinesh Karthik. Don't believe me? Just Google "Dinesh Karthik stats in IPL 2022". In a cricket career that has seen many ups and downs, it is safe to say that Dinesh Karthik is at his peak right now. Remember the Rubel Hossain over in the Nidahas Trophy Final ? Now imagine that same hitting form over an IPL season. What do we get? Millions of people who follow cricket wondering, "Can Dinesh Karthik make a comeback?" Let us come back to that later. "My specialty is that I can bat at five, six, seven and help India in setting up the best score possible or in winning games......." ~Dinesh Karthik, via ESPNcricinfo Hitting 43 boundaries this IPL having faced just 148 balls is phenomenal. What makes this extra special is...

For the second consecutive time this IPL season, KKR have managed to defend a score quite comfortably ( v SRH and v MI ). They say defending a total is the most difficult aspect of T20 cricket which is why most captains have opted to bowl first in previous editions of the IPL. Yesterday KKR captain Shreyas Iyer opted to bat first and that I think set the tone for rest of the match. KKR looked very strong after the completion of the IPL Auction 2022. They turned that into performances winning three of their first four matches before suffering a five-match losing streak, before winning v RR . Cricket, or rather sport in general, is all about momentum and Kolkata had clearly lost it midway through the tournament. Their top order was failing, Shreyas Iyer and Nitish Rana were inconsistent and most of their bowlers leaked runs. While people like Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and Umesh Yadav had been excellent, other international cricketers like Pat Cummins and Aaron Finch produced ordinary ...

A chase of  210  is always challenging in T20 cricket. But when you have a lineup as strong as RCB does in IPL 2022, you are expected to do better than lose by 54 runs. Credit to the Punjab bowlers for sticking to their plans and backing an excellent performance by their batters. But RCB...oh...RCB, is this another one of those years? They say nothing hurts more badly than a false hope. I feel for RCB fans right now. Year after year, the promise of a new dawn, but the same old issues haunting them. Sometimes I wonder if we could associate the word "chokers" with this IPL franchise. Seven Playoffs and three  IPL finals, yet no trophy to show. Let's not dive too much into the past and focus on this year. The only issue that came up after this year's mega auction was that RCB would have to play atleast two inexperienced batters in their top seven. After giving ample opportunities to Anuj Rawat, they have now settled on Rajat Patidar and Mahipal Lomror, with Shahbaz Ahmed...

Cricket | Test | ODI | T20I | India | Captaincy | Virat Kohli  Virat Kohli recently stepped down as India captain in Test cricket. Following are the announcements leading up to it. "....... I've decided to step down as the T20 Captain after this T20 World Cup in Dubai in October." It made sense thanks to his immense workload and a proven leader in Rohit in the waiting.  "This is going to be my last leg in the IPL as captain of RCB." This was coming, since the IPL workload is much greater as compared to T20 Internationals. "Bottom line - there can't be two white-ball captains", said Sourav Ganguly, justifying Rohit's ascent to ODI captaincy when Kohli still wanted to continue as leader. Fair enough, makes sense to have a clear distinction between white-ball and red-ball captaincy. I thought the above events may finally allow Kohli to become the world-beating Test captain we all knew he was going to be and make India a long-format dominator acro...