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Best day of IPL ever?: Three Super Overs in One Day | Was Sunday 18 October the best day of IPL ever? | Two incredible games have a combined three Super Overs
The doubleheader of IPL on Sunday witnessed three super overs in two matches, making it a historic day. Kings XI Punjab gained two points after playing two super overs in one single match after Shami defended six runs against Rohit Sharma and Q de Kock with his excellent bowling spell. In the second super over, Mayank Agarwal and Chris Gayle chased down the 12 run target with one six and two boundaries.
The two Indian bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami gave a tough fight to the opposition team but KL Rahul’s quick run-out kept Quinton from completing the match winning run. Agarwal admitted of thinking about their last super over with Delhi Capitals, which was the first super over match of IPL 2020. “This is sport. It can get hard, but you definitely can’t do without it. For a moment or two, the DC game was in the back of my head, but the thinking was to watch the ball and hit the ball. It is amazing to be part of this game, which will go down in history. Hopefully we can sneak in, but we are not talking about it, we are not looking at the points. It is about each game and trying to win it”, said Agarwal in the post-match presentation.
Gayle might have won the match for Punjab, he wasn’t happy rather was angry before he came on to bat. “No I wasn’t nervous. I was a bit more angry and upset that we got ourselves in this position,” Gayle told Mayank Agarwal on IPLT20.com. “But it’s a game of cricket and these things do happen.
“Shami is the man of the match for me,” Gayle continued. “To defend six runs against Rohit and de Kock, that’s fantastic. That’s a great job. I have faced you in the nets and I know that you can nail those yorkers, and nail them well. Today he came and delivered and brought it home for us.”
In the first half of the day, Kolkata won two points after the new captain Eoin Morgan took charge. KKR brought Lockie Ferguson into the team and he picked three dismissals for 15 runs and also bowled the super over successfully. David Warner was diappointed by the results and blamed the middle over as they came so close to winning the game. “I don’t know where to start. At the end of the day, we probably leaked a few too many in the middle overs and at the back end. For us it’s about finishing games and we’ve failed the last 2-3 occasions. Not at all in two minds about bowling first. I thought this was a nice wicket that wouldn’t change and to be fair it didn’t. 165 was about par”, he said in post-match presentation.
Hyderabad altered their approach in this encounter. The Sunrisers promoted Priyam Garg to number three as the youngster has displayed some serious promise during the course of the tournament. They also broke apart the lethal Warner-Bairstow opening partnership and instead promoted Kane Williamson to bat at the start along with the English wicketkeeper-batsman. Warner came out at number four and stayed unbeaten until the end, but couldn’t take his side home as Sunrisers succumbed to their sixth defeat of the season.
One can definitely say that pacers stole the show on the day. Jasprit Bumrah’s proficiency is well-renowned, but the manner in which Mohammed Shami and Lockie Ferguson defended their side’s fortunes in the super over deserves equal applause as well. The IPL is very well into its second half of the season but the sheer number of close encounters makes the tournament and its matches quite unpredictable.
Written by Anjali Jha. Follow Anjali on Twitter today.
