IPL 2021: Delhi Capitals begin with a Saturday night Shaw

Opener hits 72 off 38 balls, stitches 138-run stand with Dhawan to make a chase of 189 against CSK look easy

Of all the quotable quotes picked out by the media from Ricky Ponting’s recent statements on Prithvi Shaw— most of them severely disparaging—the one that got the least column-space or airtime was this: “If the penny does drop, I’m not sure if I’ve seen many more talented players than him in my whole time of playing the game.”

Prithvi Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan. (PTI)

The Delhi Capitals coach wasn’t the only one waiting for Shaw’s penny to drop; the entire Indian cricket fraternity was too. For a man recently out of his teens, it is a remarkable thing that Shaw has already witnessed as many controversies as he has. There was the drug ban and there was the disaster in his return to Test cricket in Adelaide —his 0 and 4 runs emblematic of the team’s eventual 36/9 humiliation. He hasn’t played for the Indian team since but stories of his transformation came in the form of 827 Vijay Hazare Trophy runs.

But because millions of viewers don’t tune in to the telly for a domestic 50-over tournament, Shaw decided to put his reinvented self on neon-lit display when they did—for the first weekend game of IPL 2021, against MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings no less. And a T20-loving nation, along with Ponting in the Delhi dugout, together watched Shaw’s penny drop for themselves as the most mature 21-year-old in international cricket today smashed 72 scintillating runs. From just 37 balls.

Off the 38th, he was out. But it was enough to make the rest of the contest, and Delhi’s eventual 7-wicket win, a mere sideshow. Because from Shaw there were backfoot punches rocketing to the fence in a carpet-hugging manner and uppishly hit cover-drives off the front foot gently sailing into the stands of his domestic home ground, the Wankhede Stadium. Shaw was especially brutal against his Mumbai teammate Shardul Thakur’s bowling—hitting him for three back-to-back (to back) fours through the off side in the fifth over. But that isn’t to say that he didn’t enjoy shredding Sam Curran, Moeen Ali and Ravindra Jadeja as well.

Shaw’s show was enough to make his opening partner Shikhar Dhawan’s 85 runs seem like a supporting act, mainly because until the small man was at the crease it indeed was. But the real shadow of Shaw’s knock was cast over not Dhawan but another lefty in CSK’s Suresh Raina, who was making his IPL comeback after 2019. Raina made it count as well with his 39th—yes 39th—IPL fifty. But despite CSK having batted first, Raina made his vast legion of fans wait just a little bit longer before he finally made his return.

Return of Raina

At the fall of CSK opener Faf du Plessis’s wicket in the second over of the game, the broadcast cameras focussed where the fans would’ve, had they been allowed into the Wankhede Stadium for the second game of this IPL— towards the CSK dugout. For, at the fall of the first opener’s wicket is where Raina traditionally walks in to bat for CSK, and the anticipation was a tad higher than usual on Saturday for his entry at No.3, mainly because the franchise’s highest-ever run-getter had skipped the previous season in 2020 due to familial reasons. At the dugout, however, it wasn’t Raina who was poised for an introduction; a fellow lefty in Moeen Ali was. Understandable, given that Ali had played ODIs and Tests in this very country for the last few months while Raina was woefully out of match practice. Fact: Between the final of the 2019 IPL, which took place before the World Cup in England, and April 2021, Raina had played just five competitive games for his state. In that period of time, he made news not for his batting but for retiring from international cricket and skipping an IPL. Now here he was, watching a CSK debutant bat in a position where he had scored a bulk of his 5368 runs for the franchise.

But the wait for Raina to take the crease didn’t last long at all. Three balls, to be accurate. First ball of the third over, Chris Woakes nicked Ruturaj Gaikwad and there Raina soon was in his beloved yellow, ready to face his first ball of consequence in 23 months. He would make it worth the wait for the three-time champions, punching the final ball of that Woakes over uppishly through cover for four. But Raina’s shackles didn’t snap open, for the truth is that he bid his time initially. Not so much to find his feet but because Ali was going great guns at the other end.

So much so that when the ninth over began, Raina was on a run-a-ball 16: half those runs scored against two successive deliveries by R Ashwin, his teammate at CSK for eight overs. It was only after Ali departed in the ninth over—not before having smacked Ashwin for two sixes from the first two balls— did Raina remind CSK what they had missed out on in the previous season. He rocked back and planted a short ball from R Ashwin into the midwicket stands for his first six—and Ashwin’s third of the over—and simply didn’t look back.

There were two trademark big hits against the leg spin of Amit Mishra in the 12th over and when he heaved Marcus Stoinis over the ropes to end the 13th over, Raina had his fifty. But just as he was about to springboard from that landmark, he was run out by Jadeja, who in turn had run into the back of Avesh on his attempt for a second run (Avesh cleaned out Dhoni two balls later as well). But thanks to yet another lefty in Sam Curran, who took a real shining to his brother Tom’s bowling, CSK got to 188.

For a very short while that score seemed enough. Then Delhi’s Shaw, playing on his home wicket, decided to make the night.

Brief scores: CSK 188/7 (Moeen Ali 36, Suresh Raina 54, Ambati Rayudu 23, Ravindra Jadeja 26*; Chris Woakes 2/18, Avesh Khan 2/23). DC 190/3 in 18.4 ovs (Prithvi Shaw 72, Shikhar Dhawan 85). DC won by 7 wkts.