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Ravi Bishnoi sent down nine dot balls in his three overs, dismissing Rahul Tripathi and Ravindra Jadeja within the ninth and thirteenth overs respectively.
Ravi Bishnoi has taken eight wickets from seven games to date this IPL. (PTI Photo)
Ravi Bishnoi was the standout bowler for Lucknow Super Giants of their five-wicket defeat to Chennai Super Kings. Despite that, the young legspinner didn’t get to bowl a fourth over and finished with bowling figures of two/18 from three overs. With CSK chasing 167 to win on the Ekana Cricket Stadium, LSG captain Rishabh Pant put his faith in fast bowlers as a substitute of a spinner.
CSK needed 56 off the last five overs and went on to realize the goal with three deliveries to spare. With Pant’s decision backfiring, it did raise eyebrows why the wicketkeeper-batter didn’t use Bishnoi whose three-over spell included nine dot balls.
Nonetheless, Bishnoi has thrown his weight behind Pant’s decision though he doesn’t know the rationale why he wasn’t called to bowl within the death overs.
“I didn’t really talk (to Pant) about it. I got here to the wicket twice, but perhaps he had some plans in mind. He probably desired to execute something else…,” Bishnoi said throughout the post-match press conference.
“A captain can see higher and from behind the stumps, he can understand the situation higher. So in response to me, he took the choice that he felt was higher.
“No, nothing like that [talk about the fourth over]. It was clear in his mind [what he had to do]. In a tense situation, it is healthier for a captain to think from his viewpoint, so he took what was the higher decision,” he added.
Bishnoi had gotten rid of Rahul Tripathi (ninth over) and Ravindra Jadeja (thirteenth over). While he didn’t get to finish his quota, the lesser experienced Digvesh Rathi and part-timer Aiden Markram did bowl 4 overs each.
“There was quite a lot of time after I thought of bowling him [Bishnoi] that [fourth] over,” Pant said explaining his decision. “But we discussed with quite a lot of players and just couldn’t let him bowl. We thought let’s take it deeper, and that didn’t occur for us today.”
