Shakib banned: All about the IPL game cited in the ICC's press release

A wave of shock descended upon the cricketing world on Tuesday as Bangladesh’s star all-rounder and limited-overs skipper Shakib Al Hasan was banned from all forms of cricket for two years by the International Cricket Council (ICC). Highlighting that one year of the ban would remain suspended, ICC in a press release noted that Shakib had accepted three charges of breaching the ICC Anti-Corruption Code. These charges pertain to the failure of disclosing approaches to engage in “corrupt conduct”. However, the Indian Premier League (IPL) too, has been dragged into this controversy as a specific game of its 2018 edition has been cited by the ICC where Shakib failed to report an approach.  

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Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Kings XI Punjab, April 26, 2018 

The match in question was in the league stages of the IPL. It was played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Uppal which is the home ground of the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SH) side. Ravichandran Ashwin, the Kings XI Punjab (KXP) captain won the toss and elected to field first. Emerging pacer Ankit Rajpoot had a great start to his day dismissing the SH skipper Kane Williamson for a duck. Rajpoot ripped through the top order, reducing SH to 27 runs with the loss of three wickets at the end of 5 overs. On this occasion, Shakib rose to the occasion along with Manish Pandey who stitched together a partnership of 52 runs at a rate of 5.88 runs per over. This had raised a lot of eyebrows at that time as it was the lowest 50 run partnership of the season. Nevertheless, they managed to propel SH to a total of 132 runs. Shakib scored 28 runs off 29 balls, while Rajpoot took 5 wickets for 14 runs in his 4 overs spell.  

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The second innings

The KXP openers KL Rahul and Chris Gayle started off the innings in a commanding fashion. Before Rahul was castled by Rashid Khan, the duo had already put 55 runs on the board in approximately 8 overs. Thereafter, things went downhill for the KXP middle order. The likes of Karun Nair, Aaron Finch, and Manoj Tiwary failed to find any sort of rhythm. Interestingly, Shakib starred with the ball as well. He took the two crucial wickets of Mayank Agarwal and Finch, besides giving away just 18 runs in his three-over spell. KXP was eventually bundled out for only 119 runs. Thus, SH won the game by 13 runs and brought KXP’s 4 match-winning streak to an end. In the 2018 IPL edition, SH reached the final but was pipped to the trophy by Chennai Super Kings.  

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