Spinning a web

How often do we see two spinners take six wickets in an one-dayer? But VIIT’s Piyush Taru and DY Patil College’s Kapil Deol achieved that in the Sankarrao Kawre Memorial Inter-Engineering Cricket Tournament

Suhrid Barua, Pune Mirror, March 7, 2008

The league match between DY Patil College (Akurdi) and VIIT in the 16th Sankarrao Kawre Memorial Inter-Engineering Cricket Tournament, was an edge-of-the-seat thriller but that took a backseat with eye-catching performances of two spinners, who achieved not many accomplished names have even attained in international cricket.VIIT’s Piyush Taru and DY Patil’s Kapil Deol bowled splendidly on the matting wicket at the ILS Law College ground, reaping an impressive haul of six wickets apiece in a match in which VIIT scrambled home by one wicket.
DY Patil made first use of the wicket and were bowled out for 99 in 28.4 overs with Piyush taking 6 for 9 off 7.2 overs. And when it VIIT’s turn to chase down the score of 99, they were forced to make a heavy weather of the smallish score, by Kapil Deol who captured 6 for 15. Mind you, it’s not an everyday occurrence to see two spinners grab six wickets in a match, that too in a one-dayer. “I kept flighting the ball as I knew that the DY Patil batsmen were not comfortable with it. I was getting appreciable turn from the deck and that helped,” said the shy, mild-mannered second-year VIIT student.
The boy on the losing side, despite his six-wicket haul, Kapil Deol, feels he did nothing ‘extraordinary’. “I don’t think that I bowled anything ‘special’. Indicretion overwhelmed the VIIT batsmen.. They were probably expecting me to flight the ball but I was smart enough not to oblige them and kept delivering the quicker balls,” quips Kapil.
And what’s more, they are both left-arm spinners. “We both are left-arm spinners but Piyush relies a lot on his flight to take wickets while I like bowling the lower trajectory ones. But I feel that Piyush is a better bowler than me,” says Kapil, a compliment something Piyush is not sure of. “I’m not sure whether I am a better bowler than Kapil. The important thing is that both of us did our job for our side. It’s so unfortunate that Kapil had to be on the losing side despite taking six wickets, which is a creditable achievement in any level of the game,” Piyush signs off.