The Rising Pune Supergiant was handed a crushing blow by the Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday, with Gautam Gambhir’s men chasing 183 like it was a walk in the park. The defeat ended a three-match winning streak for RPS, which had followed three straight losses.
RPS can still qualify for the playoffs, currently sitting in fourth place in the table with eight points from as many games and six to go. One defeat in their last three games should not ring alarm bells if you look at it academically, but their bowling and fielding on Wednesday, coupled with some questionable selection calls and a flawed auction strategy, is threatening to derail their season.
Asked to bat first, Pune put on a competitive 182/5 on the board on a wicket that was on the slower side. It looked like a good total, considering they had defended 160-odd twice before this season already on similar wickets. However, Pune were a bowler short on the day, with influential England all-rounder Ben Stokes missing out because of a sore shoulder. In what was a surprising decision, captain Steve Smith announced at the toss that his team was replacing Stokes with South African specialist batsman Faf du Plessis.
This meant that the responsibility of leading the Pune bowling attack lied with South African leg-spinner Imran Tahir. In support, he only had fellow spinner Washington Sundar and quick bowlers Shardul Thakur, Jaydev Unadkat and Dan Christian, none of whom inspired faith. Had Pune missed a trick by not playing New Zealand quick Lockie Ferguson, or Australian leggie Adam Zampa, instead of Du Plessis? As it turned out, Du Plessis’s only contribution in the match was as a fielder, while the Stokes-less Pune attack got flayed by Robin Uthappa and Gambhir.
Life after Stokes
RPS had made the headlines at the IPL 2017 player auction by purchasing England all-rounder Ben Stokes for Rs 14.5 crore, making him the most expensive overseas player in the history of the tournament. The Hindustan Times said the big-money purchase was a show of “intent” from the franchise after a poor seventh-placed finish in their debut season last year.
However, that very decision could soon come back to haunt them. Stokes has done well this season, winning two man-of-the-match awards for his bowling, even though he has not quite clicked with the bat, save for a lone half-century in seven matches. However, Pune spent Rs 14.5 crore out of their Rs 17.5-crore auction budget on a player who will not even participate in the entire season.
England are scheduled to host South Africa for three ODIs starting May 24, which means that Stokes and Du Plessis both will join their national teams by the first week of May at the latest. While Du Plessis has played just two games this season and won’t really be missed, Stokes has won them at least two matches with the ball.
Stokes is likely to be back for Pune’s next game, on Saturday against the Royal Challengers Bangalore, but with the Champions Trophy coming up in June, the England and Wales Cricket Board will be watching him and his shoulder very carefully. This is England’s best chance to win the title, on home soil, and Stokes is an important member of the setup. RPS can expect Stokes to be hauled away any moment.
It was quite obvious that RPS were lacking in the bowling department after the auction, with Ravichandran Ashwin being the only big name in that department. However, after the off-spinner was ruled out of the season with an injury, Pune’s bowling attack looked even weaker. The delayed purchase of Imran Tahir, the top-ranked bowler in T20 Internationals who went unpicked in the auction, is turning out to be a face-saver for RPS in Ashwin’s absence.
However, the franchise has been found wanting in the pace department. After deciding to not keep experienced India pacer Ishant Sharma from last season, RPS decided to entrust pace-bowling duties on Stokes and players who were either uncapped internationally or had played just a handful of games. Having to choose from Ashok Dinda, Shardul Thakur, Jaydev Unadkat, Ishwar Pandey, Deepak Chahar, Rajat Bhatia, Jaskaran Singh, Lockie Ferguson, and Daniel Christian isn’t the most enviable of tasks for a captain, and that’s what Smith will have to do once Stokes departs for the UK. If Wednesday’s match was a trailer of what life without Stokes will be for RPS, they should be worried.
Poor fielding
To add to their worries, RPS dropped both Uthappa and Gambhir on Wednesday, even as the two went on to record a match-winning partnership of 158 in just 85 balls for KKR. Both were regulation catches and should have been taken by Unadkat and Sundar. In Pune’s previous match as well, Manoj Tiwary let slip a simple catch at cover. In the game prior to that, Smith, one of the safest fielders in the world, spilled a sitter at mid-off. While those two catches did not prove costly for RPS, the two on Wednesday did.
Smith admitted in his post-match interview that his team needs to work on their fielding. He also said that his bowlers needed to step up in the absence of Stokes, but didn’t. “[Stokes] was missed obviously, he’s a quality performer, but the other players had to step up,” he said. “We weren’t good enough tonight. We probably didn’t get our areas well enough and we dropped a few catches again. That’s becoming a bit of a trend for us. We need to work on our fielding and try take those catches. It was costly tonight. It’s happened in a few games in a row now and it’s something we need to change.”
Smith added that he wasn’t sure whether the dropped catches were because of an attitude problem: “The guys are working on it in training. It’s just that we’re not putting it together out in the middle. Hopefully we can turn it around and start take our catches better, and execute our plans better as well.”
RPS’ batting is the only department that is working for them, with Ajinkya Rahane, Rahul Tripathi, Smith, MS Dhoni, and Tiwary all striking good form this season. However, a weak bowling department, thanks to a poorly thought-out auction strategy, and poor fielding, could result in the team missing the playoffs again this season.