Sizzling Ishant sucker punched Kochi

If you needed a punctuation mark to describe this game, you would reach out for a big bold exclamation mark and colour it a deep crimson red. The Kochi scorecard was stunningly woeful at the end of the four sensational overs: "0 4 0 0 0 0" were the scores of the batsmen sucker-punched by Ishant Sharma, who harassed them with seam and bounce. And Kochi never recovered from that soul-crushing spell from Ishant.

The hair bobbed away in the air in characteristic fashion as he ran in, the fingers was behind the seam and the wrists snapped at the release, and the length was nearly always full. The first has been an ever-present theme with him in good and bad days, the second image hasn't been always consistently repeated, and the third was a pleasant surprise.

Ishant entered the scene after Dale Steyn took out Brendon McCullum in the first over with a delivery that jagged away to take the outside edge. It was the beginning of Kochi's nightmare as Ishant stunned them with a triple strike. Parthiv Patel stabbed a delivery that bounced and seamed away from him to the keeper, Raiphi Gomez (what was he doing at no 4?) was taken out for a first-ball duck by a sharp incutter, and Brad Hodge combusted in the fifth delivery. He played a very loose and very ambitious off drive and wafted way outside the line of the full delivery that cut in to rearrange the furniture.

Kochi were 2 for 4 then and all of their hopes rested on their opener and captain Mahela Jayawardene, who was a forlorn figure in the middle, watching the demonic destruction unfold in front of him. Ishant wasn't done yet; he reserved his best for Jayawardene. He trapped Kedar Jadhav in front with a sharp incutter in the fourth over and produced a brute of a delivery to knock out Jayawardene, and Kochi, in the same over. It screamed up from back of a good length, held its line and kissed the edge of the defensive prod en route to the delighted Sangakkara. Jayawardene gave an inquisitive, and accusing, look at the pitch before he turned and departed the crime scene.

Kochi were 11 for 6 from four overs at the fall of Jayawardene and though there were couple of face-saving contributions from Ravindra Jadeja and Thisara Perera, they were rapidly heading along a cul-de-sac to nowhere.