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When Kusal Perera laid into Shardul Thakur's opening over (27 runs) in the first game of the Nidahas Trophy, there seemed little possibility of a comeback. The shoulders had dropped and he had started to look aloof in the contest, until Washington Sundar sent Perera back. At the fall of that wicket, Shardul was the last man to amble in from the boundary line to join his teammates in a huddle. Skipper Rohit Sharma, who has played a lot of cricket with Shardul in Mumbai, handed the pacer his first shot at redemption, by offering him the next over. Since then, he has figures of 5 for 67 in 10.3 overs. And after the match-winning show on Monday (March 12), there's little doubt he has put the wounds behind him.
Another young bowler was put through a stern test in the first two games - he leaked 37 runs in the opening game, and 36 in only three overs in the second - but turned a new leaf on the third opportunity. Despite being toyed with in the previous fixture, where the hosts bungled defending a steep total against Bangladesh, stand-in captain Thisara Perera placed his faith in the young Akila Dananjaya. The 24-year-old was thrown into the deep end, and he emerged unscathed.
Bowling in the second over of India's chase, he outthought Rohit by denying him room as the latter advanced down the wicket to go aerial. In his following over, he spotted Shikhar Dhawan's intentions of giving the charge too, and pulled back the length wisely to force a last-minute change in shot. The result was a miscued hit and a wicket. The wily offspinner, who went wicketless in both the first two games, returned figures of 2 for 19, and although he couldn't stand in India's way of a win, he'd made personal amends that he ought to be glad about.
When Dananjaya had come in to bowl in the powerplay overs in the game against Bangladesh, he had clearly struggled against Liton Das and Tamim Iqbal's use of the feet. With Liton getting to the pitch of the ball easily to hit him for sixes, Dananjaya was forced to shorten his length. Even that failed to reward him as Tamim cut that off the backfoot for four. As he was cramped for lengths on that flat wicket, his little variation with pace that night hardly helped. However,on Monday, it seemed Dananjaya had thought hard about his game and chalked out a fresh plan. After deceiving both the openers, the offspinner altered his pace efficiently while bowling at Suresh Raina. The left-hander's attempts at charging down the pitch or hanging back for the sweep delivered limited results as Dananjaya opened a gamut of tricks. For every time Raina advanced, he spotted it early to pull the length back, and every time he searched for the sweep, he fired it in quick. The mistakes weren't repeated andin 48 hours' time, Dananjaya had corrected a few wrongs.
Shardul was introduced into the attack on Monday as a first-change bowler, as was the case in India's first fixture when Kusal Perera went after him. After starting off with a wide, he picked up a wicket off his very first legitimate delivery of the evening, much thanks to Suresh Raina's acrobatic catch. The wicket brought his previous tormentor - Perera - to the crease, but there was no repeat from the series opener. The day was only to get better for the fast bowler.
After Vijay Shankar was thwacked for consecutive sixes in the 11th over, Rohit turned to Shardul to arrest the momentum. The Mumbai pacer responded with a wicket again, of Thisara Perera who had just hit those two sixes. The first knuckle ball was inside-edged past the stumps, but he couldn't escape the second as he clearly failed to judge the pace on the ball, toe-poking it to mid off.
Shardul's game awareness came to the fore when he countered Perera and an on-song Kusal Mendis. With the wicket showing signs of lethargy already, he made confident use of the knuckle ball to constantly force mistimed hits. As the batsmen looked for that extra yard of pace to play their shots, Shardul's change of pace helped.
Less than 24 hours ago, Shardul's fellow pacer, Jaydev Unadkat, had lauded his compatriot for his control over the art of bowling the knuckle ball. "Shardul does it very well. It's a very good ball to have in the armoury but it is about being confident to bowl it in pressure situations," Unadkat had mentioned. Shardul admitted to have developed the skill on his own through a period of two years. "I have been practising it for a long time. It hasn't come easy. So whenever I found time to bowl with [the] white ball while I was playing domestic cricket, I used to try the knuckle ball. I tried it in the nets and I think probably since two years, I have been practising it.
"He [Zaheer Khan] started it but I haven't seen much of his videos. I always knew how to bowl it - what's the grip for knuckle ball, I just learnt it on my own," Shardul added.
The pitch used for the game was the same where Bangladesh had registered the fourth-highest chase in T20Is. With two games in three days, the pitch seemed tired and showed signs of holding up, time and again. In fact, eight of the last 12 deliveries Shardul bowled were either knuckle balls or the conventional slower ball, and while it clearly worked in his favour, his ability to come back strongly after being hit for a four off the first ball of the final over, re-established his strength of character on the day. The second game onward, he has conceded just 20 runs at the death having bowled four overs, and that is another facet that India will look to explore more in the days to come.
While Shardul's performance paved the way for India's second win in the tournament, Dananjaya's came in a crushing loss. However, one thread that keeps both the bowlers together, is their bouncebackability. For Shardul, his performance got only sweeter with the win, and his figures of 4 for '27' made it all the more cherishable.
(CRICBUZZ)
