Gulf News readers and experts run through KKR’s dramatic win over Delhi to reach IPL final in UAE
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00:00Hello everybody, once again and welcome to Straight Back with Golf News and Mr Cricket
00:12UAE, Anas Sajjan. Well, there are close matches and then there are close matches, especially
00:19one that should have been done at halftime. It is a bit of a real scare for KKR today.
00:25Anas, I'll let you say hi and then we'll go through the match.
00:29Hi Matt, hello Shyam, hello happy Abhijeet and Sahil and disappointed Maaz. Well, this
00:37match as you mentioned should have gone one way when it began in the second innings. Delhi
00:42were cruising and they had a brain freeze and like the great Sunil Gavaskar always says
00:47and he kept on saying during commentary, when you are set, make sure you finish the games
00:51and especially on wickets like Sharjah. It's not easy when you come into bat later and
00:55they almost gave away a gift to Delhi but they had Tripathi probably to have better
01:02sense and hit that six. Otherwise, probably it would have been Maaz smiling here and Abhijeet
01:07probably tearing his hair apart.
01:09Yeah, Shyam, obviously you were at the stadium. What was it like there?
01:15I mean, it is absolutely the match turned on its head. In fact, I was pretty much getting
01:20ready to finish my copy and getting ready for an eight-wicket win actually. So from
01:26122 for two, it came down to 130 for seven. I swear, I had completely reworked my copy.
01:34So it tells you how the match panned out. Like Anish said, it was just a brain freeze,
01:39nothing else. And these are professional cricketers. They have been in this situation any number
01:44of times and time and again, they just lose their head and that is something inexplicable.
01:49That is what pressure does. Pressure does to the best of players. I mean, it just freezes
01:54them out and you see collapse like this, which is why P20 matches are always interesting
02:00and you cannot call a match till the last over or till the last ball in this case.
02:05Yeah, it was the final ball. Maaz, I mean, obviously when you saw duck after duck after
02:10duck, I think there was four in a row on that scorecard. You must have thought maybe your
02:14luck was in.
02:16Definitely. I mean, it was at a time in the 70th over, Vishkanth's over, it looked like
02:20Delhi just gave up and Ashwin just dropped a catch and they all were looking very dead.
02:26But the comeback that Rabada gave, two or three runs over and a wicket. One run, in
02:32fact. Three runs was from Nokia's over. So that two over just changed the game entirely
02:37and it was not a day for nails and hearts, to be honest. I was sitting on the edge of
02:42my seat and I was like, we are back in the game. I left my phone. I stopped tweeting.
02:47I was like, I have to play, I have to focus. And yeah, it was a very, very good match towards
02:52the end. So, but at the end of the day, it's KKR who is in the finals, but very proud of
02:56Delhi Capitals throughout the season. They have played amazing cricket. Yeah, a little
03:00bit of hiccup in the last few matches, but to be honest, the last three matches, it was
03:04not a one sided game. RCB match, Bharat playing the last ball, hitting the six. Last previous
03:11match with CSK was Dhoni's heroics. And this game, as you saw, it was Rahul Trivedi in
03:16the last. So it was not a bad performance, but yeah, not in the finals.
03:21And Abhijit, obviously, as Maaz was just saying, these games are getting more and more thrilling
03:27as we get to the business. And KKR got one more trick up their sleeve as they go into
03:31the final.
03:32Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a shared belief that we all fan have and we backed our team.
03:41I was expecting them to be in the final, to be honest. From day one, they stepped in
03:46to EUAE. So they actually turned the table around and it's just the last one more game
03:53and now we are holding the trophy.
03:59And Sahil, welcome. Long time no see, Sahil. Delusions of grandeur there from Abhijit.
04:05Or do you think they have a chance against the... Probably because Chennai have also
04:09had their wobbles. So it is one match. I mean, is this going to be unpredictable or
04:15do you have a firm favorite?
04:17Of course, the Knight Riders have a chance. Abhijit has all the right to brag. You know,
04:21they have won seven out of nine games since the time they've come in. That's no joke.
04:26You know, they were seventh when they came to Dubai. So the Knight Riders have all the
04:30bragging rights and it's not going to be a CSK. CSK are not favorites for sure. It's
04:35totally equal the way the Knight Riders have come into the halfway of this tournament.
04:39A full credit to them. And they should have won today. Yes, they made their lives harder
04:44by themselves. You know, there's two seniors. I blame these two seniors, Captain Morgan
04:48and Dinesh Karthik. You know, these guys have to step up. They cannot keep playing this
04:52cricket and they cannot say it happens like, you know, in the big game. No, these guys
04:56are experienced players and, you know, that's the thing. But they have reached and now it's
05:00going to be a cracker of a final.
05:02OK, and I think Satish has joined us. Are you there, Satish?
05:05Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry for that. Sorry.
05:08That's OK. As a Chennai boy, I think you want to respond to that. How do you see that?
05:14Even I was a bit taken aback when Sahil said he didn't back Chennai.
05:20Hardcore fan more than me. No, jokes apart, I think Kolkata has had two very close games.
05:28Number one, they played in Sharjah, which was a tailor-made for their bowlers. Now,
05:34in Dubai, it could not be the same wicket. The wicket could be different. It might not
05:39spin the way it has done here. These are slow wickets. The difference is in the bounce.
05:45Sharjah is a slow wicket, which will have a lower bounce, which will help the spinners
05:49of KKR. Whereas in Dubai, it will have a slightly higher bounce, even though the ball is slow. So
05:56that makes a huge difference in terms of playing the spinner. But again, just to go back,
06:04had Delhi accelerated their knock a little bit earlier in the innings instead of playing it too
06:10safely, another 10-15 runs could have made a big difference. But having said that, huge credit to
06:15KKR for having reached the final. It is, again, like I've been telling this, the top three batsmen
06:21have been scoring runs. Once the top three have been removed, the middle order is pretty, pretty
06:26weak. So in a final like this, it is going to be very difficult. So anyway, I'm looking forward
06:33to the final. And as any day, I would say, I would go back to Chennai.
06:41Okay. And I'll just open it up now, guys, for anything else that anyone wants to add. I mean,
06:46obviously, Pant failed again. It looked like we had another easy game. But now, like we just
06:55mentioned shortly there before, there's been some right nail biters in the last few games. And
06:59hopefully, we can get one more in the final. You see, Matt, these wickets in Shahjah were so
07:05difficult to bat. So like you mentioned that Delhi were slower, like Satish mentioned, they scored
07:12less. But mind you, when KKR came on to bat, batting was much easier. The ball was coming on
07:17to the bat, like a football. And the way the openers got off to the start, Delhi were struggling
07:22when they were opening. They just somehow managed to reach that score, thanks to late hitting by
07:27Shreyas Iyer and to that no ball which Varun Chakravorty bowled. Otherwise, that Hetmair
07:32wouldn't have been able to hit two sixes. But there are no ifs and buts. But having said that,
07:37what I am not happy about Delhi is they're changing players. In the last four games,
07:42they've changed four players. Let me remind you, in the last match, they replaced
07:49Tom Curran. With this match, they had Stoinis who came back after a hamstring injury. Now I
07:56understand he's a big match player. But it's a big risk. And you saw him, he was in the massage room.
08:02Then before Tom Curran, you had Ripal Patel. Then before Ripal Patel, you had that offee from
08:08Delhi. I can't remember his name. Four changes in the last five games. It's asking for too much.
08:14Whereas you see CSK, they stick to their core player. Bearing Suresh Raina, they took Robin
08:20Uthappa and they backed him in spite of two failures and then he delivered. So these are
08:25small things which I'm sure Delhi will learn. Ponting is an experienced campaigner. He's won
08:29a couple of World Cups for Australia. It's just that to get their actress as a young side,
08:34they must be deflated today. But I'm sure next time they would be lucky and they would cross the hurdle.
08:40Okay. Yeah, anyone else? Anything to add there? I mean, I just think,
08:44otherwise we can wrap it up. I think that's all.
08:46Yeah, I mean, to me, Delhi are exhibiting the traits of a classic choking. Big match,
08:54sweet choke and the hurdler. I mean, this has been what we've seen even last year also.
08:59They came to the final and went completely blown away in the final. I think they will need
09:06one major win under their belt before they start delivering, especially in knockout games.
09:16I think the captaincy also came into the picture, isn't it? Like Morgan's
09:23captaincy versus Perth's captaincy. I think that's where that difference came in also,
09:28Shyam, isn't it? Yeah, bang on. That's very, very true, actually. Because the way Morgan
09:34was bringing the changes and I know you wouldn't expect Ponce to be in the same class in the same
09:39place. First year, first major captaincy. Yeah, maybe. I, in fact, even thought Nokia should have
09:46been in the game a little earlier than what you did. You can't expect drop catches in such a
09:54slow scoring game. Correct. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, if you're coming down to the final ball,
10:00these tiny little things can prove to be absolutely vital. So yeah, I think we can
10:08wrap it up there guys, unless anyone has anything vital to say. Who's going to win? CSK or KKR?
10:14Come on now, you have both favorite teams. Put your hand up for one team, you can't put both hands.
10:19Okay, we'll do the rounds then. Shyam, who's going to win? Come on, everybody put up
10:23their hands. Sahil, who do you say is going to win? I don't know. I have a huge SRK fan,
10:32so it's always going to be KKR winning it. They won against Chennai in 2012, so
10:36history will repeat.
10:42Satish, you said CSK, Shyam? Yeah, I mean, CSK looks formidable, but I think
10:49Kolkata will win simply because they seem to be lucky. They seem to be pulling off
10:54last gap wins. Maybe even the final could be a last gap win. You never know, Shyam. You might
11:00be third time lucky. I don't know. Matt, you are the neutral guy. You have to say, pick up.
11:09Well, I mean, I tipped RCB at the start, but I also strongly fancied Chennai. I thought they
11:16would do quite well. Obviously, they've been through that wobble. They got a good win last
11:21time and I think that they might get over the line. Just like how Asp is out, CSK will be too.
11:27All right, boys. I shall wrap it up there. Thank you everybody for joining us here at
11:33Golf News and straight back, Mr. Cricket UAE. As usual, you can log on to golfnews.com for all our
11:40reviews, analysis, previews, and obviously our live coverage as well.
11:45And we shall see you on Friday for the final.