No resources? No problem for strategist Gambhir

Much like Dhoni has figured out the spin template for CSK, Gambhir has for the defending champs.

Sunil Narine was always going to be a big void to fill for KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir. But Brad Hogg, Narine’s replacement for the game against Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk, and Piyush Chawla, were more than handy. Usually, Narine comes on at around the fifth over, especially when a left-hander is batting.

But with a right-handed pair on strike, Gambhir was spot on in introducing Chawla. The Muradabad spinner bowled three dot balls to McCullum before getting him with a wrong ‘un.

In came Suresh Raina and Gambhir replaced Chawla with Hogg. The chinaman bowler tied Raina down and conceded just two of the over.

The run-rate dropped from 8.83 to 7.85. Subsequently, CSK lost three quick wickets in the middle overs, bringing Darren Bravo and Faf du Plessis together. Gambhir once again got in Chawla and the leggie promptly duped the Caribbean to put breakes on CSK. Hogg would later remove Ravindra Jadeja during the slog overs.

Now conside Kolkata’s game against Delhi Daredevils. Morne Morkel had just got Delhi’s Mayank Agarwal in the second over and skipper JP Duminy walks in.

After two overs from the pacers, Gambhir brought Narine on. Duminy blocked the first two balls but the spinner got the better of him with the third. Gambhir’s ploy had worked and Delhi were 22/2 in just the fifth.

Spin to win

This hasn’t been the first time that Gambhir decided to bring his off-spinners on against left-handers. Against Bangalore, after his pace unit provided him with an early breakthrough, he used Narine and Yusuf Pathan against Chris Gayle. Once Narine successfully operated against Gayle and conceded just 14 in his first two overs, Gambhir sustained the pressure with Pathan. It soon told, as Gayle attempted to hit Pathan out of the attack and lobbed two fairly simply chances during the game.

Unfortunately, Morkel put both the chances down. Teams do not generally survive dropping Gayle once, let alone twice. So it proved with Kolkata but it could have all been so different had Morkel kept his head even once.

Also, the two costly drops off Pathan were good illustrations of nicely set fields. After packing the off-side for Gayle, Gambhir left the entire leg side open. Gayle loves to muscle the ball into the crowd with his pull-shot but Gambhir anticipated his temptation against on off-spinner and stationed two men on the ropes.

Another example of working a player out was the dismissal of Delhi batsman Shreyas Iyer who was batting on 31 at Ferozeshah Kotla. Iyer was trying hard to resurrect Delhi from a precarious position but Gambhir tempted him with a bait.

He halted his off-spinner Narine and brought Chawla to the attack. Runs were hard to come by as DD were already two wickets down in the eighth over. Looking to accelarate the run-rate, Iyer was tempted to swing into the leg side, in the arc between deep square-leg and widish mid-wicket. Playing a pre-meditated slog, Iyer threw away his wicket.

Not fool proof

While this strategy has working for Gambhir mostly, it clearly isn’t fool proof yet. KKR’s loss against Hyderabad proved it quite well. Even though Narine and Pathan were bowling interchangingly against southpaws David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan, the duo didn’t step out, or premeditate but instead stayed patient to dispatch every lose delivery.

Just goes on to say that cricket hasn’t yet been got down to a perfect science and that talent always finds a way.