From the dressing room to the ground to hotel to home for these past three days, Shashank Singh keeps hearing the same lament: “Bhaiyya, woh full toss ball mar dete toh…”
Shashank keeps rewinding the delivery in his head, and is filled with regret at why he couldn’t put away a full toss that might have ensured a win for that lost by 6 runs to .
The last few days since the final have been hard for Shashank. The Punjab Kings finished runners-up, as (RCB) went on to win their maiden title. The middle-order batsman who finished on the losing side, however, has still not come to terms with the defeat and says that in hindsight he could have done things different.
The target of 191 was always gettable, he laments.
He recalls the calculation he carried out in the last two overs when Punjab Kings needed 42 runs from 12 balls. “I had done my calculation of the last two overs, Bhuvi likes to bowl yorkers so I had planned to get atleast 16-17 runs from him. My calculation was that in the last over our target should be 24 runs in 6 balls. I got only 13 from Bhuvi’s over though, so the final over runs needed was 30,” Singh recalls of those tense moments. He knew that in the next six balls he had to connect them all enough to max out. Had he done it, it would have been a miracle but calculation don’t always work out, he adds.
Josh Hazlewood, RCB’s most prolific seamer with the ball, was always a daunting task. “Mentally, my mind was ready to get a first ball yorker from Hazelwood. So I had positioned myself but I never anticipated a full toss one, that too on my thigh pad. Now I feel, if I would have connected it, even if I got it on the handle of the bat, I would have got maximum, because the fine-leg was near. I was hoping for a wide from him but it never came. When I saw the scoreboard stating the last ball needed 12 runs, I knew it’s all over,” he adds.
Shashank managed to score 24 runs in the final over and finished unbeaten on 61 off 30 balls, six runs short of the target. Had he connected any of those in his earlier stay in his innings, he wondered if things could have been different.
The long walk to the dressing room was certainly the longest one he felt. If couldn’t hold back tears of joy, Shashank couldn’t control his tears of failing to get them their first title. He began to weep while facing the last ball. “I’m a strong person but I couldn’t control myself when I hit that six on the fifth ball and I saw 12 runs needed off the last ball. I realised it’s all over. When I came to the dressing room, everyone came and said, why am I crying? I told them, mujhe apne aap aansoon aa raha hai,” he narrates.
It has been more than three days since the final. However, he notes that evening whoever has met Shashank, have all praised him, it’s always with the rider: “Bhaiyya woh full toss ball mar dete.”
“People appreciated my batting wherever I have gone but all are reminding me of that one full toss miss. Mujhe bahut bura laga. The ball was on my hip, square leg was up, I just had to get that bat in which I couldn’t. From hotel to airport to ground to home, everyone had that one point bhaiyya woh ball mar dete bas,” he says.
Shashank admits that he and Nehal Wadhera should have finished the game. When the team went to bat, he felt that his turn would never come to face the ball as the top order was in good form. In the conversation, he uses the word ‘hindsight’ several times, and ‘could have done that’ is a common refrain. But in reality the trophy was out of his team’s sights.
Before the league started he had predicted that his team will finish in top two, and Shashank came up with another prediction: “Next year we are playing the final in for sure and we will lift the Trophy too,” he predicts.
