The evening before the IPL 2017 Eliminator against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Bengaluru, KKR’s performance analyst Anirudh Srikkanth walked up to Ishank Jaggi with news. Manish Pandey had a side strain. Jaggi might have to play.
“The first thing that came out of my mouth was, ‘How?’” Jaggi says.
He had not batted in 15 days. When the XI is set during a tournament, the reserves step back and give way. Jaggi had been doing exactly that – not in great touch, not in great rhythm. He asked for batting time. Simon Katich, the head coach, told him to go quickly. He got five to seven minutes before SRH arrived for their practice and the pitch had to be cleared. “That evening, probably I was damn nervous. Not because of the IPL Eliminator. But because of the thought that I was not prepared enough.”
The next evening only became stranger. SRH battled to 128 before the rain arrived. Then came the waiting. Inside the Chinnaswamy dressing room, nobody was calm. A washout would have meant elimination – KKR had finished below SRH in the points table. “We were very desperate because if the match did not happen, we were out without actually giving it a fight.” Players waited for inspection updates as midnight approached. Shah Rukh Khan was near the dressing room area. “The look on his face was very anxious. Everybody was tense. Nobody was calm.”