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When the going gets tough, teams bank on Kagiso Rabada to step up and deliver. Right now, he is doing that for Punjab Kings. After taking some time to warm up, Rabada has now taken 10 wickets in his last three Indian Premier league games, including back-to-back four-wicket hauls. Before routing Gujarat Titans with four wickets for 33 runs on Tuesday at the DY Patil Stadium, he had claimed four wickets against Lucknow Super Giants.
He had prised out the in-form KL Rahul for just six runs with a peach of a delivery before dismissing Krunal Pandya and Ayush Badoni to restrict them to a gettable total of 153 for seven. Punjab Kings’ batting, however, didn’t click and finished on 133 for eight. Against Chennai Super kings he had figures of two wickets for 23 runs, taking down Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ambati Rayudu, both of who were well set—Gaikwad on 30 and Rayudu on 78—to set up PBKS’ 11-run victory at the Wankhede Stadium.
Against Titans, the pace spearhead provided breakthroughs at important intervals to ensure that the innings never picked up momentum. The surface gripped and offered extra bounce, which Rabada exploited. His first victim was opener Wriddhiman Saha, who had got off to a bright start with three fours and a six. Saha played a cameo by latching on to any room on offer and picked up three fours.
Rabada, however, set up Saha smartly. He knew he didn’t need to go short of a length to bother the batters due to the juice in the pitch and kept it fuller.
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In the fourth over, Saha lifted Rabada high over wide long-on for a six. But when on the next ball he tried to loft Rabada over the in-field on the off-side, he was undone by the bounce and he took the ball high on his bat to be caught at mid-off. The boundaries dried up after Saha’s wicket. At the end of 15 overs, Titans had huffed and puffed their way to a total of 98 for four. Their hopes to cash in on the slog overs wrested on Rahul Tewatia. Rabada, however, ensured there would be no late heroics. He picked up three wickets including Tewatia as the last five overs fetched just 45 runs at the cost of four wickets for Titans. He was named the Player of the Match for his 4 for 33.
“Today was a perfect game of cricket from us. It’s the nature of the game that you are going to get hit for boundaries. It just went my way that I got the wickets,” said Rabada after the game in a chat with team-mate Liam Livingstone. At the presentation ceremony after receiving the Man of the Match award, he said: “you need the bowlers to bowl as a collective and as a team we had a good outing.”
Rabada had three balls left in his spell after getting four wickets to get a five-for, but he said: “You can’t get too greedy. (It’s important to) Stick to the process. If you get a wicket, you get a wicket. Stick to what works and that’s what I tried to do. As long as we won, then that’s fine.”
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About the effectiveness in bowling at the death, he said: “As a bowler, you’re gonna have to bowl at all stages of the game and it’s just about figuring out how to be the most effective in each stage of the game and perform in each stage of the game. Sometimes it doesn’t work out for you maybe in the first, second or third stage, but the perfect game is if you have all three green lights. But it’s just about being as effective as possible in all three stages of the game.”
Delhi Capitals had a tough choice to make ahead of the 2022 mega auction. Among their overseas picks, they had to pick between Rabada and his South Africa pace partner Anrich Nortje. Capitals chose to retain Nortje. It has proven to be Punjab Kings’ gain after the franchise made Rabada their most expensive signing at the auction, spending a massive ₹9.25 crore. Capitals also went up to ₹7.75 crore before pulling out.
In 59 IPL matches, he has 93 wickets, which is extremely impressive. Starting with six wickets in six games in his debut season in 2017, he improved to 25 off 12 in 2019, 30 off 17 games in 2020 before a middling season in 2021 when he finished with 15 wickets in 15 games. This season, he already has 17 wickets in 9 games to be joint second on the top wicket-takers’ list.
Like champion athletes, Rabada has the winning mentality which helps him make decisive contributions and turn things around when the chips are down. There are numerous examples of his game turning displays in international cricket as well. It was on display in South Africa’s last Test series against India as well. After the defeat in the first Test, the SA pacer came up with an inspired spell in the second innings of the second test to break open the game for his team.
In the second innings of the second Test, he broke the partnership between Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara, who were both well set on 58 and 53 runs respectively, to change the game. From 155 for two, India were all out for 266. He also got Rishabh Pant for a duck in that spell between the 35th and 39th over to help South Africa win the second test and tie the series. He repeated the performance in the third Test when he took out Virat Kohli (79), Rahane and Mayank Agarwal during a marathon effort of 22 overs, four wickets for 73 runs to set the game up for South Africa. The Kings’ fans are looking forward to seeing more of the match-winner in him.
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