New Delhi: The short story of D'Arcy Short is that he can't play spin. And his frailties against spin not only forced him to waste a lot of balls but also put RR under the pump. He had been the find of BBL back home and his exploits on bouncy pitches attracted Rajasthan buyers to invest a huge amount in him.
But what they forgot was that he might fail to spark against a bowling type which dominates the IPL. Spinners. And on Wednesday, when he faced KKR spinners, he got stuck in his crease. The first three overs yielded just 9 runs, motivating Karthik to keep using his spinners. On the other hand, Ajinkya Rahane was constantly getting under pressure and took his chances in the fourth over to get 18 off Sunil Narine's over. But a lull from the other end meant he had to do something different. Rahane was using his feet well but Short just failed to take a clue from his skippers about how to tackle spin.
In desperation, when Rahane stepped out against Nitish Rana, he got stumped as Karthik produced a brilliant back flick to hit the stumps. Then came Samson and he began on a positive note. But soon, he too made his way back as he miscued pull of Shivam Mavi. At the end of 8th over, Short was batting on 18 off 27 balls. Never once he tried to step out and tried to force himself on the bowlers. The KKR spinners conveniently stuck to an in-between length cramping him for space.
Thanks to Mavi, who helped Short to reach 40 off 40 as otherwise, had Karthik kept the spin on, Short would have been happily nudging them for singles.
RR also suffered as they also struggled to capitalise on stands. First, it was Rahane, who got out when RR were 54. Then, it was Short who was castled at the most crucial juncture. It was the thirteenth over and RR were 98/2. He was batting on 44 off 43 balls and could have shown a glimpse of his BBL hitting here in IPL. But again, he caved in against spin and pushed RR on the backfoot.
With the team playing catch up cricket, they could never build partnerships and kept losing wickets at regular intervals in their bid to go for a big total.
