KKR Vs MI: Hardik Pandya Chops & Chuckles, Dinesh Karthik Looks To Be Swallowed By The Ground; Shivam Mavi Goes Wide Agog indianexpress.com

It was a conference of serious men on the pitch. Until Hardik Pandya strode in, wearing a roguish smile and a cheerful strut. Various shades of laughter ensued. Chuckle with captain Rohit Sharma. Giggle with Andre Russell. Grin at Dinesh Karthik. And then a guffaw when he got himself hit-wicket in the weirdest of fashions, in the process tweaking the very usage of “chopping onto the stumps.” It’s used to denote batsmen dragging the ball onto the stumps. Here Pandya missed the ball altogether, but he chopped his own bat onto the stumps, like the woodcutter’s first feeble swish of the axe to check the strength of the wood. He stood so deep at the crease on middle and off, that it was inevitable that any stroke on the off-side risked hitting the stumps. He was in control of his feet, but not the bat. He was shaping up for the ramp, moved further off and across—too back and much across—then realised that the ball was pitched outside the off-stump and tried to waft it. But the down-swing of the bat disarrayed the stumps. Pandya, though, was in a mood to find humour in everything, even in his own foibles. Even the tired Kolkata bowlers were amused. You get hit wicket, but not often do you chop the bat onto the stumps. And so much comic relief on a cagey night.