Image Credit- BCCI
There were over
33,400 spectators at Chepauk on Tuesday, anticipating MS Dhoni to step out for
the first time this season, after Rashid Khan had Shivam Dube holing out for 51
off 23 balls with only ten balls remaining in the Chennai Super Kings’ innings.
Additionally, the cameras continued to pan to the original finisher; but, CSK
unleashed Sameer Rizvi, their new finisher, on Rashid.
With perhaps the greatest spinner in the world against him, the 20-year-old
aggressively slog-swept his opening ball in the IPL for a six over square leg.
When Rizvi made his entrance known, players and personnel in the dug-out gave
one other high fives. Among them were the excellent finisher Ravindra Jadeja,
Dwayne Bravo, who has also finished games for CSK in the past, and a few more.
After three balls,
Rizvi ventured to take Rashid’s 96-kilometre-per-hour dart and swung so
forcefully that he cleared long-off even though he mishit it. Chepauk began to
get used to the new finisher. In the final over, Rizvi attempted to hit another
six off Mohit Sharma, but he was caught at the long-on boundary. The harm? 14
off 6 balls in his first IPL innings, at a strike rate of 233.33.
“When Rashid came to bowl in the 19th over, the coach [Stephen Fleming]
told me if a wicket falls, you will go out to bat,” Rizvi told reporters
in Chennai. “After that, it was set in my mind that it was the 19th over
and it was a spinner bowling and if they are sending me at this point of the
match, anyone who walks in will be expected to smash boundaries. So, in my
head, only one thing was going on – I have to go out and hit it big – I was
clear about that.”
“Before I
stepped onto the ground at the team meeting, I received my debut cap,”
Rizvi recalled. “And that’s when I found out I was playing the first
match. I was a little nervous when I was fielding but I never got to bat. But,
in the second match, I mellowed down a bit and was not feeling nervous; there
was no such pressure. I think I got used to the crowd after the match, so
that’s why I was not feeling much pressure.”