IPL 2019: 10 highlights from the first 10 days of the tournament

#2 Sam Curran’s hat-trick and Delhi’s second capitulation in two days

Sam Curran - The hero of KXIP's miraculous win over DC (Image Courtesy: IPLT20/BCCI)

In the 12th match of IPL 2019 between DC and KXIP, DC was cruising to a comfortable win needing 23 runs in 21 balls with 7 wickets in hand. But Delhi lost Pant and Chris Morris in the 17th over.

The KXIP Captain Ashwin brought back Sam Curran for his final 2 overs. He gave away 2 runs in the 18th over and took two wickets. Shami accounted for Hanuma Vihari in the 19th over.

In the first ball of the last over, Curran sent Rabada’s leg-stump cartwheeling and suddenly he was on a hat-trick. Off the next ball, Curran knocked off Lamichhane’s off-stump to complete the hat-trick.

Delhi Capitals lost their last 7 wickets in 17 balls for an addition of 8 runs. This could very well be the most spectacular collapse in IPL history. This was Delhi’s second collapse in 2 days. Against KKR, they were saved by Rabada’s super over. But at Mohali, they had no place to hide.

#1 Fortune favoring the favorites

In IPL 2019 so far, it is the story of fortune favoring the favorites or the stronger team.

RR could have won easily won their match against Kings XI Punjab but for Ashwin mankading Jos Buttler.

RCB was done in by Umpire Ravi in their match against MI.

In the match between CSK and RR, Dhoni when on zero let the ball to roll on to the stumps only to find to his relief that the bail has not been dislodged. Dhoni went on to score a match-winning 75.

In the match between KKR and Kings XI, Punjab, Mohammad Shami bowled a perfect yorker to knock off the dangerous Andre Russell’s stumps and found to his dismay that there were only 3 fielders inside the 30 yards circle and hence a no-ball was called. Russell was on 4 off 4 then and thereafter cracked 44 runs off the next 14 balls.

In the match against MI and Kings XI, Punjab, Rohit Sharma decided not to review his dismissal. However, replays later showed that the ball was conveniently missing the leg-stump. That was the turning point of that match.

To make matters worse, the out-of-form teams like RCB and RR were not at all smart with their decisions at the toss. Their penchant to opt to chase in all the matches irrespective of the conditions led to their downfall. For teams like RCB, MI and RR, the choice going forward in the tournament would be to bat first and put runs on the board.