Rising Pune Supergiant had a drastic debut season in the Indian Premier League last year as the MS Dhoni-led side finished on the second last spot in the points table. One player who stood out for the franchise was the fast bowler Ashok Dinda. The fast bowler from Bengal with an unusual jump before delivering the ball and the popular headband finished the season with 11 wickets from 9 matches with a decent economy rate of 7.57. Going into the 10th season, the franchise changed a lot of things. They released the veteran fast bowlers RP Singh, Ishant Sharma and gave the captaincy to Steve Smith in hope for a better season.
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Comes the first game of 2017, the team had done a good job of restricting a powerful Mumbai Indians team to 153 runs by the end of the 19th over. With 6 deliveries to go, captain threw the ball to Ashok Dinda, Pune’s most experienced fast bowler and on strike was Hardik Pandya who had recently recovered from an injury. What followed was a complete massacre. Pandya smashed Dinda for 30 runs in the final over that included 4 sixes and a four. A disappointed face, hands on hips and a heart-broken Dinda walked back to the dressing room. You could feel bad for him for you have seen that site too many times.
It was the most expensive final over in the Indian Premier League. With that over, Ashok Dinda had got many unwanted bowling records to his name. He became the first bowler in the history of IPL to leak more than 57 runs twice. He had conceded 63 runs against the same Mumbai Indians side in 2013. Even though Pune won that match thanks to the brilliant knock by captain Steve Smith, Dinda’s chances of making it to the playing XI looked bleak.
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Short of fast bowling options, Pune decided to keep Dinda in the side for the next game against Kings XI Punjab. He finished with the figures of 26/1 from 3 overs and must have taken a sigh of relief. Comes the third match, Pune is playing against a young Delhi Daredevils’ side and Dinda gave away only 13 runs from his first two overs. As soon as fans started thinking that bad times for him might be over, Dinda leaked 23 runs in the 18th over the game. Once again the visuals were same, a disappointed face, hands on hips, but the same story of heartbreak.
The season may have just started but the time is running fast for the Bengal fast bowler. He looks merely a shadow of the pacer who made headlines in 2008 in the opening season of the IPL and was hailed as the best fast bowler produced by India.