Shreyas Gopal produced another of his typical clutch-moment cameos to close out a nervy five-wicket win over Haryana that puts Karnataka in the Vijay Hazare final. The highest wicket-taker of this edition, his unbeaten 23 off 20 balls stubbed out the last flickers of Haryana’s fight-back hopes, by wrapping up the chase of 238 with 16 balls to spare. But the overriding theme of this game was how Devdutt Padikkal furnished another account of his 50-over mastery.
The 24-year-year cursed his adrenaline-burst moment when he stepped out to heave Nishant Sidhu and skied the ball to mid-off, leaving him 14 runs short of what could have been his third hundred on the spin in this format. He kept the door slightly ajar for defending champions Haryana to script a late heist. They did lose the wickets of Krishnan Shrijith, the wicket-keeper who endured a horrid game behind and in front of the stumps, and Ravichandran Smaran with a belligerent 76, only for the battle-scarred hands of Shreyas to stave off late twists.
Tricky pitch
Until that moment, though, Padikkal illustrated the virtues that could inch him closer to an India call. The surface changed its characteristics faster than a chameleon would. It was sluggish, yet the odd ball skidded. Some of the balls from seamers scudded along the surface; some of the deliveries from spinners bounced awkwardly onto the batsmen’s waists. But he outdevilled the devils of the surface, without resorting to anything remotely devilish. He tamed it like a ringmaster would an angsty tiger.
The odd ball kept low, he played most of them on the front-foot, and sometimes stood a foot outside the crease when facing seamers. But his mind was flexible, playing the ball as late and as smartly as possible. He later explained his game-plan. “We were focusing on looking to get around the front foot because it was keeping quite low,” he told the host broadcasters.
Placing them to perfection, the Devdutt Padikkal way 👌
A fine 50 so far 🙌#VijayHazareTrophy | @IDFCFIRSTBank
Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/TGZrcvP4ES pic.twitter.com/FthwpqS3xd
— BCCI Domestic (@BCCIdomestic) January 15, 2025
“I was just telling everyone who was coming into bat that you have that momentum going towards the ball and try to move your body towards the ball because the more you hang back, the more difficult it gets,” he added.
It helped him deal with the low-fliers that the Haryana spin trio of Amit Rana, Parth Vats and Nishant Sindhu consistently delivered. He comfortably tickled, nudged and bunted them for singles through the leg-side. As many as 39 off his 86 runs, more than a third, came via singles. There were times when he got stuck in a stream of dot balls. But he resisted the panic shots, well aware that the target of 238 required common-sense and composure rather than cunning or courage. The only jazzy stroke was the scoop off his stumps, via a free hit from Anshul Kamboj.
He shepherded the young pair of KV Aneesh and Smaran, for alliances of 64 and 128 runs, the pillars on which Karnataka’s win was erected. The stand with Smaran drained the fight out of Haryana. Smaran, too, showed that he possesses the gifts to thrive in this format. Two strokes stood out. A back-foot punch off Nishant Sindhu, ala his favourite batsman Kumar Sangakkara. Then a whippy shovel off the same bowler a few overs ago.
Padikkal’s game-awareness stood out. He targeted the seamers, who offered him the pace on the ball that the spinners didn’t. Intermittently, he stepped out to the spinners to push their lengths back. When Kamboj came for his second spell, he ran him down for a four past the wicket-keeper, by opening his bat face at the last moment. Throughout his knock, he batted with a slightly open stance, so that he got into favourable positions whenever the bowlers erred on the shorter side. The 86 was his seventh successive fifty-plus score in a format where he averages 82.52 in 31 innings, a century arriving in almost every third outing. All this heap of runs coming at a strike rate of 91.
It’s the format that, at this juncture, suits him the most, that maximises his strengths and glosses over his flaws. In the shortest version, he has a tendency to get stuck in the middle overs. He doesn’t possess the power to boss the game once fielders start populating the boundary ropes. The dozy footwork against the moving ball could hinder his progress in the longest format. As could the hands that follow the ball, with the feet stationary.
The 50-overs avatar gives him the space and freedom to be himself. He could afford to bide his time unlike in the T20s, he needn’t worry about seamers probing the fourth-stump with fielders stacked on the off-side. At least in the subcontinent, he needn’t fuss about the wickedly seaming away-swinger. When the ball doesn’t bend round the corners in the corridor, he lashes them through covers, slices them behind point, and drives them to the long-off fence. Thus, he forces bowlers to stray into his body, whereupon he flicks and shoves with utter comfort, and nullifies bowlers targeting his weak-spot. His game against spinners, while restrained, was equally sublime.
With his long reach, he almost always reached the pitch of the ball. The nimble wrists smothered the spin. He kept pushing the lengths back. The reach also enabled him to pick the ball from outside the off-stump and sweep it fine.
It’s the only format he has not yet donned the India stripes, but if he sustains this touch, he needn’t wait for too long.
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