\It is tough to be David Miller at the moment. The Delhi Capitals looked to have found a hero in the South African, but the final two balls of the Indian Premier League (IPL) match against the Gujarat Titans turned him into a villain. The middle-order batter’s refusal to run a single on the penultimate delivery of the match came back to haunt him as DC lost the game by one run. However, India legend Sunil Gavaskar doesn’t see much fault in Miller’s approach, as he was confident of hitting at least a double on the final delivery.
With Kuldeep Yadav at the other end of the pitch, Miller denied his partner the strike despite knowing that DC needed two runs from the final two balls to win the match. Miller ended up failing to connect with the final delivery from Prasidh Krishna, and the attempted single saw Jos Buttler run out Kuldeep Yadav, earning GT their first win of the campaign.
While Gavaskar admitted that Miller should have given Kuldeep the strike on the second-last ball, he didn’t find fault in his approach either.
“Yes, he was backing himself to hit the winning runs, but having seen the way Kuldeep Yadav nudged that ball for a single off the first ball, maybe he should have given Kuldeep the strike,” Gavaskar said after the match. “He should have given the strike. This is all being wise after the event, but the fact remains that the way he had been hitting the previous over and that over as well, he believed that he could do it, simple as that. So you can’t fault him for that. He had the confidence that he could do it, but it didn’t come off because the ball that Prasidh Krishna bowled was an absolutely superb delivery.”
Former England captain Kevin Pietersen also shared his views on the debate, suggesting Miller was confident of at least getting a single on the final delivery of the match after denying the strike to Kuldeep. Since he had done very well to bring DC as far as they came, Pietersen felt he couldn’t be blamed for what happened in the end.
“I think purely based on the fact that he thought that from that last delivery, he would guarantee to get one at least. And if not one, he would strike it out of the ground because he’s that good at striking the ball out of the ground. So that’s where his mind would have been. Does he want to risk Kuldeep or Kuldeep getting out?” Pietersen said. “Yes, they’ve tied the game, and yes, they’ve got the super over, but he thought from that final delivery, I’ll definitely get one. The worst case is one. I’m not going to miss it. Best case, I’ll get a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. That’s where he was at.”
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