Picture Credit: IPL
Injuries are part and parcel of professional sports. Not only can it impact the careers of sportspersons, in some extreme cases it can even be fatal. Fortunately, though, Kolkata Knight Riders' Dinesh Karthik evaded major injury during the ongoing Indian Premier League match against the Delhi Capitals at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Tuesday.
In the first ball of the 17th over of the Delhi innings which was being bowled by Varun Chakravarthy, Rishabh Pant, the batter looked to play an extravagant off drive but only managed an inner edge post which the ball bounced off the wicket and was going towards the stumps.
While attempting to prevent the ball away from the stumps using his bat, Pant almost hit Dinesh Karthik's helmet. Karthik was good with his reflexes and anticipated that the bat was coming towards him as he took evasive action and got saved. However, replays of the incident showed that it was a close call.
Check out the video of the incident here:
Talking about the match, Delhi managed just 127/9 in their 20 overs against Kolkata after being invited to bat first by Eoin Morgan. Steve Smith and Rishabh Pant were the only real contributors with the bat as they scored 39 from 34 and 39 from 36 deliveries, respectively. This was also the first innings of IPL in Sharjah that ended without even a single six being hit.
Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer and Lockie Ferguson scalped 2 wickets each with Tim Southee also picking a solitary wicket on his KKR debut. Although Chakravarthy was economical, he could not take a wicket this time.
The match is a crucial one especially for the Kolkata Knight Riders since two points here would take them to 10 points, two clear of three other teams at the same number of points all from 10 matches.
Delhi, meanwhile, are almost certain of playing the Playoff games but would want to carry forward their winning form into the business end of the tournament rather than lose the plot here. With the likes of Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel in their ranks, Delhi would even fancy defending a low total in this fixture.
Watch the video here: