Australians at the IPL 2021

It wasn’t the best of weeks for Australian players at the IPL with some being dropped and a couple of costly errors playing parts in defeats

Cummins goes for plenty, scores a few

Pat Cummins made a bigger impact with the bat this week than the ball. Off 7.5 overs in the two games against Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals he went for 94 – the 58 he conceded against CSK being one short of his most expensive T20 figures of 0 for 59 for Delhi Daredevils against Mumbai Indians in 2017. However, he nearly redeemed himself against CSK with a career-best 66 off 34 balls batting at No. 8 which included taking 30 off the 16th over against Sam Curran. That reduced a near-impossible looking 75 off 30 balls to 45 off 24. Eventually it came down to needing 20 off the last but Kolkata Knight Riders lost their last wicket when Prasidh Krishna was run out trying to get Cummins back on strike.

Henriques’ unexpected role

Punjab Kings had a significant change of tactics when they dropped Australian fast bowlers Riley Meredith and Jhye Richardson who had been expensive early in the tournament. It meant a first outing for Moises Henriques and the Kings initially slumped to an insipid defeat against Sunrisers Hyderabad (with Henriques making 14 off 17 balls) but bounced back strongly with a nine-wicket win over Mumbai Indians where Henriques was in a rather surprising role. He took the new ball – the first time had done that in T20s since 2013 – and bowled three straight overs in the Powerplay for just 12 runs including nine dot balls. Mumbai could only post 131 and the Kings had few problems in the chase.

Warner short

T20s can be decided by the smallest of margins. David Warner’s Sunrisers side let another promising position slip after they had raced to 56 for 1 in the sixth over chasing 161 against Delhi Capitals (featuring Steven Smith who made a useful 34 off 25 balls) and in the end the game went into a Super Over. Warner and Kane Williamson walked out with the bat but could only manage seven against Axar Patel with Warner being called for a short run off the final delivery when he did not ground his bat as he raced back for a second. Would it have made a difference? Well, in the Capitals’ Super Over they needed one off the last ball to win and managed to scamper a leg bye.