With the two months of IPL coming to a conclusion, the CricXtasy team sat together to put down the best innings from the season.
Virat Kohli is our top player of the match. He started the chase well and then looked to bat deep.
Kohli stepped up against #Titans‘ challenging bowling attack on a track that wasn’t very productive for shot-making.#RCBvGT | #IPL2022 pic.twitter.com/3maH3O7wNS
— Stat Doctor🩺 (@stat_doctor) May 20, 2022
RCB’s last match of the group stage, a must-win encounter to qualify for the playoffs, against the table-toppers Gujarat Titans, on a surface that was tricky to bat on — the stage couldn’t have been bigger. And Virat Kohli is a man for big stages.
GT had posted a more than competitive score of 168 on a pitch that was gripping for the spinners. And they had the best in the business — Rashid Khan, and the very accurate and skillful — Sai Kishore in their ranks. But Virat Kohli brought out his ‘A’ game (something which he hasn’t been able to do a lot lately).
He raced off to 21(14), hitting Hardik Pandya and Mohammed Shami for two boundaries each in the first 4 overs. Now he had to take it deep and negotiate two of the most negative matchups for him, in Rashid and Kishore, while maintaining the run rate at the same time. And he did that expertly.
He hit Rashid for two sixes, scoring 24 runs off 12 deliveries against him, and defended and nudged Kishore, who was spot on with his lengths and variations, scoring 8 runs off 14 deliveries, but most importantly not losing his wicket against him. By the time he got out, RCB needed just 23 off 21 balls. He had laid the foundation and more.
The frequency of such innings, where he looks like he is batting at a level a few notches higher than his teammates and takes his team to victory effortlessly, has gone down drastically. This IPL season would have been incomplete if it hadn’t witnessed at least one such Kohli special. Thankfully, it did.
Rajat Patidar played the knock of a lifetime last night, becoming the first uncapped batter to score a century in the playoffs.
80.35% of total runs came in boundaries, out of which 37.50% came in sixes only.
How good was his onslaught against the spinners?#LSGvRCB | #IPL2022 pic.twitter.com/2deoisQppM
— Stat Doctor🩺 (@stat_doctor) May 26, 2022
Rajat Patidar played the knock of a lifetime last night, becoming the first uncapped batter to score a century in the playoffs.
80.35% of total runs came in boundaries, out of which 37.50% came in sixes only.
How good was his onslaught against the spinners?#LSGvRCB | #IPL2022 pic.twitter.com/2deoisQppM
— Stat Doctor🩺 (@stat_doctor) May 26, 2022
Rajat Patidar’s match-winning century against Lucknow was an iconic innings. He is an uncapped player, was brought in as a replacement player and Patidar delivered at the big stage in a tricky match situation. His onslaught began in the sixth over against Krunal Pandya. RCB were crawling at 32/1 after the first five overs and Patidar smashed Krunal for four 4s and a six to provide some momentum to RCB’s innings.
Patidar, who was at 14 (13) before that over, raced away to his fifty in just 28 balls. Just after his half-century, Glenn Maxwell got out and Patidar had a greater responsibility on his shoulders. After his short stand with Mahipal Lomror, Patidar played a crucial in the partnership with Dinesh Karthik. Ravi Bishnoi, a clear threat for Karthik, had 11 balls left in his spell when he arrived at the crease. Bishnoi instantly troubled Karthik but Patidar took the charge in the next over. The right-handed batter smacked the wrist-spinner for three sixes and two fours in five balls – yet again providing momentum to RCB who were going at around 8 RPO before this over.
According to ESPNcricinfo, Patidar had an impact of 175.37 runs in that match, while the next best was Mohsin Khan with an impact of 64.09 runs.
Top player #KKRvsLSG – Quinton de Kock 🚨
QDK played the innings of his career last night. From 57 off 40 balls, he accelerated to score 83 runs off his last 30 balls!🔥
In fact, 38 runs came off his last 10 balls!🤯
Where do you rate this among the best IPL knocks? #IPL2022 pic.twitter.com/tlLzjkm0ae
— Stat Doctor🩺 (@stat_doctor) May 19, 2022
“If you can get to 155-160 on this pitch, you are in the game,” said Graeme Swann in the pitch report for the clash between Kolkata Knight Riders and Lucknow Super Giants. No one was surprised as the tracks at DY Patil Sports Academy were understandably tired amid a bustling tournament. But, contrastingly, the runs flew like anything throughout the game.
While LSG had already registered eight wins before the game, they were yet to progress to the next phase; playoffs. After winning the toss, KL Rahul anticipatedly chose to bat first. The two openers – Quinton de Kock and KL Rahul – strode at the crease.
Before the match, Quinton de Kock had a sustainable average of 27.80 and a strike rate of 136.10 in the season. He seemed scratchy at the start, looking to be in a hurtle state. Even his first boundary came off a late pull shot.
In the third over of the innings, the southpaw attained a lifeline when the debutant Abhijeet Tomar couldn’t get a hold of a relatively easy catch at third man. To exacerbate it, Quinton thwacked a back of a length delivery over deep midwicket in the same over.
That six bestowed de Kock an incentive, which was discernible in his following boundary off Varun Chakravarthy. He promptly read the googly and got under the ball for a pneumatic drive past extra cover.
It was a typical de Kock shot. A shot that gave the ominous sign of what’s impending next. The South African familiarly carried on the innings, barely sparing anyone throughout the innings.
Not many batters would think of hitting Sunil Narine, let alone reverse sweeping him. But, such was his extreme that he sprucely reverse swept the ball for a maximum over deep backward point. He hit another six off Narine over the deep square leg in his next over.
Quinton de Kock made 51 runs against the spinners, which were the most by him in an IPL innings. He also hit the joint-most number of boundaries (7) off them. Moreover, he also accumulated the most number of runs (36) in boundaries against the slow bowlers.
He wreaked havoc in the end overs, where he has had a baffling strike rate of 322.7 in the final five. In this phase, he tonked six fours and as many sixes. Whacking boundaries is not as facile as Quinton made it look.
The 29-years old had a strike rate of over 135 against every bowler in this superlative knock. He carried his bat, along with KL Rahul, and ended up amassing 140 in 70 deliveries. Records galore in what was the third-highest aggregate in an IPL innings.
Shivam Dube – 95* off 46 balls vs RCB
Shivam Dube vs #RCB last night:
✅ Highest strike rate in an IPL inning – 206.52
✅ Most sixes in an IPL inning – (8)
✅ Best IPL score – 95He made his second fifty of #IPL2022 and helped #CSK register their first win of the season.#CSKvRCB pic.twitter.com/wBFEUjR787
— Stat Doctor🩺 (@stat_doctor) April 13, 2022
One would suspect this to skip the memory beats. So let us quietly recognise the most explosive knock played at this edition of the IPL. Shivam Dube’s batting is known for things it doesn’t possess, not for what it does. Go through any Twitter timeline with Dube on screen, and there would be plenty of comments on his jammed-up footwork and lack of depth and range.
But that day was different. Dube had the cricket twitter buzzing with praise from all corners after he blasted one of the better attacks of the IPL for a scintillating 95 not out off just 46 deliveries. Be it the quicks or their spinners, the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) had no safe response to Dube’s assault on a dryish surface at the DY Patil in Mumbai.
Dube took a few risks, which is what his job as an aggressor demands. But they all paid off on the night, with his innings featuring 5 fours and 8 sixes and taking CSK to a gigantic 216/4 in a rare league stage win.
It isn’t that this knock made Dube a better allround cricketer or changed perceptions about him. It just displayed what the tall left-hander could do on a given day, leaving his mark when nobody expects and earning himself some breathing space. We know that isn’t the easiest thing to do.
Jos Buttler 116(65) vs DC
𝑱𝑶𝑺 𝑩𝑼𝑻𝑻𝑳𝑬𝑹 is unstoppable in #IPL2022 as he scored his 3⃣rd ton of the season.
👉 116, 103, 54, 13, 70*, 100, 35 👈
The Buttler show started in the sixth over and kept going on. Over 74% of his runs came in long-off, long-on & mid-wicket.#DCvRR pic.twitter.com/rhYx4hOGzH
— Stat Doctor🩺 (@stat_doctor) April 23, 2022
Quite simply, Jos Buttler had to feature in this list. It’s an incredibly tough task to choose one from his several IPL 2022 masterpieces, for even a 24-ball 54 scored within the powerplay in the league fixture against GT could only be marvelled upon.
While each of his four hundreds were worth the praise, the sensational blitz featuring nine fours and as many sixes against the Delhi Capitals was full of disdain and class to make a cut.
“Clean”, “Jos Buttler, stop it! It’s too much”, ”toying”, ”keeps on keeping on”, “putting everyone to the sword”, “the audacity” – these were some of the many expressions used by a mesmerised commentary team featuring Alan Wilkins, Pommie Mbangwa and Danny Morrison among others. Barring a first-over false shot off Khaleel Ahmed – a leading edge over short third-man for four – the innings was fully authoritative, especially after the right-hander decided to unleash after being 29 off 26 going into the ninth over.
Kuldeep Yadav and Lalit Yadav were taken downtown with ease, and quicks Khaleel Ahmed, Shardul Thakur and Mustafizur Rahman just couldn’t find the answers to stop the carnage. RR finished 222/2, a total enough to seal a 15-run win under controversial circumstances, with Buttler having scored 491 runs from seven innings and a third hundred, threatening to surpass Virat Kohli’s record 973-run tally from 2016. He ended the season with 863 runs, scoring another ton in the second qualifier, to become the overseas player with the most runs and hundreds recorded in an IPL season.
There’s something about stepping up in strife, with swords from fans, media and colleagues on your throat. Rinku Singh did exactly that in one of the best matches of IPL 2022. Chasing 211 for a win, KKR needed 69 off 26 balls when Rinku SIngh stepped in. With Andre Russell at the other end, all eyes were off him when he started. But they soon started turning when Russell was dismissed and Rinku crunched a six off Avesh Khan with a smashing pick up shot. With 38 needed off 12 balls,
Rinku took it upon himself to do a ‘Dre Russ’. In the next six balls he faced, Rinku smashed three sixes and a four. The equation was down to three needed off two balls when Evin Lewis pulled off a spectacular grab in the deep to send back Rinku for a stunning cameo of 40 off 15 balls. Marcus Stoinis then sent Umesh Yadav’s stumps for a toss off the final ball to give LSG a two-run win, a margin of victory they would’ve hardly expected after putting on 210/0 in the first innings. But, after the Rinku show, they were probably lucky to walk away with a win at the end of the day.
David Miller – 68*(38) vs Rajasthan Royals, Qualifier 1
Even the best can falter when it comes to a tense run-chase in a high-pressure playoff game, that too with a finals berth on the line. But David Miller probably had ice running through his veins as he pulled off one of the best chasing acts in the playoff history of the Indian Premier League.
Things were not easy when he walked in to bat. It was the 10th over of the innings and Gujarat Titans still needed 104 runs to win, with seven wickets in hand. Miller wasn’t alien to this situation, though. He had found himself in similar scenarios throughout the season and had taken the Titans over the line as well. Although it might look like just another routine job for a man in form, you need to have nerves of steel to pull it off once again in such an important game.
Miller started off slowly, scoring just nine runs off the first 13 balls he faced. But the way he took on Yuzvendra Chahal, who would go on to win the Purple Cap in the season, probably decided the fate off the contest. The South African took 17 runs off the seven deliveries he faced from Chahal and thus took Rajasthan’s most potent wicket-taking threat completely out of the equation. He was very calculative in the way he faced the other bowlers and concentrated on taking the game deep. The Royals still had the advantage when they had 15 runs to defend in the final over, but it was all about just three clean hits for a man in form like Miller. He did exactly that as he launched Prasidh Krishna for three consecutive sixes off the first three balls of the over to take the Titans to the final in their maiden season.
This has turned out to be a great season for a player who has been featuring in the IPL since 2013, and yetfell off the grid completely in between. But the experience of the highs and lows from all these years has helped Miller in understanding his game a lot better now, and the Gujarat Titans tapped into that potential and experience in just about the right time.
