Starc's crazy catches
The Australians in this IPL season seem to love challenging gravity
I was back at the Dubai Sports City Cricket Stadium in anticipation of a run fest, given the match featured Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell, David Miller and Virender Sehwag. Not only was the Bangalore batting a fiasco, they could also not find a silver lining in their seam-heavy bowling attack to take through to their next game.
Have we found a new swing-and-seam sensation in Sandeep Sharma? He bolstered Punjab's bowling with the scalps of Gayle, Kohli and Parthiv Patel. They fell to his inswingers within a space of five runs, though I have to say Kohli was a tad unlucky with his lbw decision.
Now you can add Mitchell Starc's name to the growing list of Australians who keep pouching gravity-defying, stunt-like and boundary-rope catches in this IPL season. Wriddhiman Saha looked incredibly itchy at the crease and picked Varun Aaron's leg-stump delivery off his thighs. It never looked like getting pocketed, but Starc leaped a few inches above the ropes and did it! The cheerleaders behind him were seen gasping in utter disbelief. Aaron was thanking the seven heavens and a diving Starc again for holding onto another stunner, this time Maxwell. They are such geniuses in fielding, I tell you!
Miller belted three consecutive fours off Albie Morkel - all through the leg side. My favourite was the punch off the pads toward midwicket that bisected two fielders in half. Bangalore put on a valiant effort on the field, but they had too small a total to play with.
The "Keep Calm" IPL advertisements clearly got to one of the spectators who carried a poster that said: "I am a Punjabi and we don't keep calm".
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