Deepak Hooda, on Tuesday (April 23), took a brilliant catch to send back Daryl Mitchell in the ongoing game between Chennai Super Kings and Lucknow Super Giants at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
The New Zealand batsman was promoted to number three after CSK lost the wicket of Ajinkya Rahane in the first over themselves. LSG captain KL Rahul made an absolute blinder behind the stumps to send Rahane back and give his team the first breakthrough.
Daryl Mitchell and Ruturaj Gaikwad steadied the ship. Both batsmen looked well set and it looked like CSK would not lose any more wickets in the powerplay. However, Daryl Mitchell had to return to the pavilion late in the powerplay due to a brilliant effort from Deepak Hooda.
On the third ball of the sixth over, the New Zealand star attempted a shot against a short ball from Yash Thakur. While he made a decent connection with the ball, he couldn’t keep his shot on the ground. At first, it looked like the ball would go over Deepak Hooda’s head at mid-wicket. However, Hooda dived to his left and caught the ball brilliantly to give LSG the second breakthrough.
Check out Deepak Hooda’s screenshot:
pic.twitter.com/ptOsjeEunR
– Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka (@Hanji_CricDekho) April 23, 2024
Daryl Mitchell departed after scoring 11 runs off 10 balls. The latest ruling will put the batsman under more pressure as he has so far failed to deliver with the bat. In six games, he managed to score a modest 135 runs with a top score of 34 and a strike rate of 125.
While Mitchell has been under pressure to deliver, he has the full backing of the CSK team management. Recently, CSK head coach Stephen Fleming supported the batsman and backed him to do well with the bat.
“He’s been contributing without giving stellar performances. We really like to back the players and it’s not always the Man of the Match performance that we value the most,” Fleming said.