IPL fans have close to witnessing a month’s action and things have started to heat up the points table in IPL’s 4th week. This tournament is getting thrilling with every passing match. IPL’s 4th week of the competition witnessed records shattering, rules being taken as fun and many more instances. As always, a few players stood because of their brilliant performances while some grabbed attention with their poor performances.
BRILLIANT PERFORMANCES
1. YASHASVI JAISWAL AND JASON ROY
Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jason Roy enjoyed brilliant performances with the bat in IPL’s 4th week. While Jaiswal performed slow against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), it was his 47 runs off 37 balls that supported their 190 run chase. Later his 43-ball 77 run score completely took away the game from the Chennai Super Kings (CSK). Hence, making the way for the Rajasthan Royals (RR) to top of the points table.
Roy battled with his injury to post a 19-ball half-century against Chennai. That wasn’t even enough to prevent their defeat, but opening the innings against Royal Challengers, his half-century made the foundation for Kolkata Knight Riders to disrupt a four-match losing streak in this week.
2. AJINKYA RAHANE, SHIVAM DUBE, DHRUV JUREL AND GLENN MAXWELL
Ajinkya Rahane took IPL 2023 by a storm with his brilliant batting. His unbeaten 29-ball 71 run score against Kolkata has been one of the best knocks of the IPL 2023. He walks into the playing XI list on that count alone, despite he hasn’t scored much against RR.
His team fellow Shivam Dube has also been in a rich form for CSK, having delievered consecutive half-centuries against Kolkata and Rajasthan. He has been destructive in the middle order too, not even sparing the bad balls against the spinners.
Glenn Maxwell has also enjoyed a brilliant IPL 2023 campaign of his own. Despite an early unsteadiness against the Royals, he wasted no time in launching a counter-attack with his 44-ball 77run score. He even got the Player of the Match honors while he didn’t even score much against KKR, he still walks into team’s playing XI as captain.
Dhruv Jurel has easily been one of the true findings of the tournament. The 22-year-old wicketkeeper-batter has backed an unbeaten 16-ball 34 run score against RCB with a 34 off 15 balls against the Super Kings. He hasn’t kept wickets in the tournament but will don with the wicketkeeping.
3. ARSHDEEP SINGH
Arshdeep Singh turned the PBKS vs MI match in a death bowling masterclass. Destroying the middle stump into two that too twice, he defended 16 runs in the final over and executed his yorkers and walked away with four wickets. This all came after he sent the dangerous player, Suryakumar Yadav back in the 18th over of the match to throw a spanner into the works of MI’s chasing inning.
FLOP PERFORMANCES
1. ISHAN KISHAN
In this IPL season, MI’s campaign has went through many breakers as their premium players haven’t played as per their reputation. Ishan Kishan is one of them. He has failed to justify himself as an opener by scoring just 183 runs in MI’s seven matches.
MI started fourth week with a 13-run defeat against Punjab Kings (PBKS) at the Wankhede, Mumbai. In the absence of captain Shikhar Dhawan, Sam Curran led PBKS and set up 214 runs target after losing the toss to the Rohit Sharma. Following the massive target people were expecting MI’s openers Kishan and Rohit to perform well. Kishan was dismissed at just 1 as his personal score.
After losing by PBKS, MI got a 55-run defeat from GT too at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Gujarat. This time, the left-handed batter Ishan went back to the pavilion after gathering just 13 runs off 21 balls.
2. DINESH KARTHIK
Dinesh Karthik’s batting has remained quiet in mostly all matches this IPL. Karthik is known for his match-finishing skills has came out as one of the biggest failures for RCB. Out of the 8 matches he played, he scored a 2-digit score in only 3 matches.
He had a golden opportunity to shine against RR at the Bangalore’s Stadium. In the match against RCB Karthik was expected to come heavily on bowlers in the ending overs of the inning for helping his team cross the 200 mark.
Dinesh again got defensive and was dismissed scoring only 16 runs off 13 balls. Against KKR in Bengaluru, he was expected to show his aggressive side after Kohli’s dismissal.
3. UMESH YADAV
Umesh Yadav adds value to KKR’s battery with his experience. In 2022, he proved himself with taking 16 wickets for KKR in his 12 matches at an economy of 7.06. For his efficiency, the KKR team management also retained him for the 2023 IPL.
As a senior player in KKR, his prime responsibility is to maintain consistency with his pace and take wickets for his team. However, the player has failed to be effective for the two-time title winning team in IPL 2023. In a home game against Mahi’s CSK, Umesh got fined for his bowling pattern. Bowling for three overs, Umesh Yadav couldn’t take any wicket and was hammered for 35 runs.
Subsequently in his match against RCB, he bowled only an over, and in that too, he conceded 19 runs after getting smashed by both Kohli and Faf. Following his terrible over, captain Nitish Rana didn’t even give a ball to the him once again in the match. As Umesh is an important player of KKR’s pace army, the team will now expect him to get his rhythm back in the upcoming matches.
Also read: trendingsportsnews.com/ipl-2023-3rd-week/
