Latest Cricket News | IPL News 2018 - CricXtasy

1. Shreyas Gopal spins RCB out at Jaipur It is the business end of the IPL extravaganza, but we are still in an unknown territory when it comes to zeroing down on the top four teams for the playoffs. Such has been the intensity of the franchises that the tournament has gone down to the wire, literally. With Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore both placed at 12 points apiece, their encounter at Jaipur’s Sawai Man Singh Stadium was nothing short of a do-or-die encounter. The winner gets to see another day, it is all but over for the one who loses. Batting first, the Royals posted a respectable 164/5, but with the ABD factor around, it might have seemed a bit too less. The Royals had other plans, of course. Introduced into the attack by Ajinkya Rahane in the seventh other with RCB strongly placed at 55/1, Shreyas Gopal took it upon himself to contain AB de Villiers. The Superman, as the name goes these days, had gotten off to a fairly attacking start and threatened to take the match away from the hosts. Gopal spun a web around the mainstays of RCB’s batting line-up, and the batting unit never really recovered from the jolt. Returning with his best IPL match figures of 4/16, he made sure his side were still in the race to the playoffs. The victims today included the high-profile AB de Villiers, Parthiv Patel, Moeen Ali and Mandeep Singh, all of whom have been in great touch in their recent matches. The fact he accounted for all the key wickets shows his effectiveness to bowl on a surface that did not offer much turn to the opposition bowlers, but he extracted the best he could. Though Gopal has

2. missed out on a few matches in the campaign so far, he remains an important member in Royals’ scheme of things. A striking feature of Gopal’s bowling is that he bowled 11 of his 24 deliveries to AB de Villiers (including the wicket-taking one), a high percentage of deliveries that could have easily allowed him to run away with the game, with the kind of class he possesses. Add to this, Gopal had also accounted for de Villiers’ prize wicket when these teams previously met. If a spinner’s comparison had to be done for the match, he was much better than his counterpart, Yuzvendra Chahal, with his execution of googlies and other variations. It would be interesting to know the way Gopal set up AB de Villiers. He would have had his man in the first over itself when the latter’s edge failed to reach the first slip. He kept de Villiers guessing with the right mix of deliveries. The leggie was highly accurate with his execution of googlies. de Villiers and Moeen Ali both failed to read his variations and had to take the long walk back to the pavilion. IPL 2018, in particular, has not been a great one for Gopal, ending on the higher side of the economy rate on multiple occasions even without bowling his full quota of overs. A spinner relying on sharp turn instead of accuracy has at times led to him bowling expensive spells. However, he has struck form at the right time and the Royals would hope for his momentum to continue. Having had a stint with the Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad prior to this, the youngster is still on the learning curve. Gopal is surely a force to reckon with in the domestic circuit. Playing for the domestic giants Karnataka, he has no qualms in pitching the ball up and asking to be hit, a typical leg-spinner’s attitude, if you may call it so. Gopal coming good in a must-win game bodes well for the team as well as the management alike. Should his side qualify for the playoffs, he would once again be given the responsibility to deliver the goods in the middle overs. Let’s wait and watch! For More Latest Cricket News Visit - cricxtasy.com