Hooda's fancy footwork

This tournament will be known for its dropped catches. Almost every match is being decided by them. When in the 18th over Angelo Mathews hit James Faulkner towards Ajinkya Rahane at long-on, he would have been out for 5 off 4 and Delhi Daredevils would have lost two wickets in eight balls. Instead Rahane fell over with the impact of the ball, and dropped one of the many catches this IPL. Mathews went on to add 22 off 9 thanks to the reprieve, and took Daredevils to 184.

Spare a thought for the poor bowler in this case. Faulkner has been the Man of the Match in his last two competitive games, the World Cup final and his first match of the IPL. He took three wickets each on both occasions and, in the IPL game, he scored runs too. Here his slower balls sat up, regulation deliveries landed on a length, and if he did produce a catching opportunity it went down. The 55 runs conceded by him was his most expensive analysis in all T20 cricket.

Imran Tahir is known for his regular use of the wrong'un in limited-overs cricket. You'd expect him to watch the approaching ball closely, but he couldn't have picked this one out of the hand. It was Nathan Coulter-Nile's first ball, it was down the leg side, and was flicked away towards fine leg. Tahir ran to his right from long leg, but at the last moment the ball spun the other way, leaving him in an embarrassed state to those who didn't watch the replays.

Bowlers sometimes elongate the 22 yards by bowling from behind the stumps, but you rarely see the batsmen do that. One of the ways to counter yorkers is to go deep into the crease, but there is only so much you can do by doing that. Deepak Hooda went one step far and shuffled across the stumps so send his back foot behind the stumps in hitting Jaydev Unadkat for two sixes in the 15th over.