Matchup Monday #6 - 🚨NEWS REPORT🚨

1. PAK vs IRE Loss 🤣

There's nothing more to say, the skipper said it best.

The only reason why Pakistan can worship their almighty Babar Azam is that PAK is so used to batting on ‘the flattest pitches’ in the world, so Babar can score such high totals, against mid-to-low-end teams, as some are sceptical about the safety in Pakistan.

Ahead of the T20 World Cup, Pakistan have proven that their batsmen have not been able to rise to the big occasion overseas.

These are their results from the 2023, in T20Is.

Out of this list, you can see that Pakistan hasn’t had much international exposure to pitches in Australia, England, and India (obviously), leading to disappointing results in big-stage occasions such as the 2022 T20 World Cup, due to the team’s lack of adaptability to different playing conditions.

Their only T20 games that were away, were in the Asian Games.

2. Jadeja’s ‘obstruction of field’ 😱

Wow. This is the third time this has happened in the IPL. Ever.

The link below redirects you to the clip of Jadeja being given ‘obstruction of field’.

In the clip above, you can visibly see Jadeja being a bit cheeky.

He was initially running on the left-hand side of the pitch, and as he was eyeing Samson aiming at the stumps, he then proceeded to change his path to make himself directly between the stumps and Samson.

To make matters worse for him, he was LITERALLY anticipating the ball to hit him, as he was ‘pre-wincing’ before the ball hit his arm.

Overall, I have a neutral standpoint on this, as in the heat of the moment, I can empathise with his decision. However, it was sort of ‘cheating’, which I know he regrets and would have taken the chance of Samson missing the stumps any day, to not ruin his reputation.

I’m happy that this rule exists.

3. RCB’s Playoff Chances ✅

If RCB can pull this off, it would divide cricketing fans whether if this is Virat Kohli’s magic potion of ‘clutching up’ into action or match-fixing to its finest.

First of all, RCB has been the first team this season to win 5 on the trot, something I commend them for, considering at one stage, they had played 9 matches, 8 of which they had lost.

If all stars align, the big knockout match between RCB and CSK will draw an unprecedented amount of attention, even I would be tempted to watch it live at 12 am.

With their players and bowlers coming into form right when they needed to, it challenges all teams, as only one team has been guaranteed a PLAY-OFFS spot so far.

That is KKR.S