Shardul Thakur playing in his 97th IPL match, registered his best IPL figures of 4/34. Shardul also reached the coveted milestone of 100 IPL wickets, when he dismissed senior Indian pacer Mohammad Shami in the 19th over.
History repeating itself?
Chris Gayle, the great West Indies batter went unsold in the 2010 auction and was signed as a replacement for Dirk Nannes, former Australian and Dutch pacer by Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Chris Gayle repaid RCB’s faith by smashing 608 runs, which included 44 sixes and duly won the orange cap.
Shardul Thakur, the 33-year old all-rounder is on a similar trail, after going unsold in the IPL mega auction. Shardul Thakur, in order to regain his place in the Test setup, signed a deal with English county championship team, Essex. Injury hit Lucknow Super Giants decided to rope in Shardul Thakur and Shardul took the opportunity with both hands, mainly with his right hand.
Shardul Thakur’s first 4 victims of the season are not ordinary batters. Delhi Capitals’ opener Jake Fraser-McGurk and Sunrisers opener Abhishek Sharma pulverised the new ball bowlers in the 2024 season and dismissing them for single-digit scores is no mean feat. Ishan Kishan, the first centurion of the season, bagged a first-ball duck. Shardul was lucky with Kishan’s dismissal, but his hat-trick ball to Nitish Reddy, an inch perfect yorker, was the deserving of the three balls to fetch a wicket.
Shardul remaining unsold at the auction was probably a justified call, because of his dwindling numbers with the ball and meagre contributions with the bat. After picking 21 wickets in the 2021 season for champions CSK, Shardul’s bowling fetched him 15 and 7 wickets in the following two seasons. Even a reunion with Chennai Super Kings last year couldn’t revive his fortunes. Shardul took just 5 wickets in his 9 games for the defending champions in 2024. The introduction of impact player rule also diminished the batting value of players like Shardul Thakur. His only noteworthy performance with the bat came against RCB in the 2023 season, a blistering 68 off just 29 balls against KKR.
Can Shardul provide the unlikely comeback of this IPL season?
