MONGOOSE MAKES ITS DEBUT IN IPL

In the 11^th match at Kotla, Daredevils made a testing 185/6 ; CSK romped home with 5 balls to spare, losing 5 wickets.

The match saw for the first time, the mongoose bat, named after the fierce animal being used.  Hyped to be a ball crusher was used to good effect by the big burly Hayden.  In this edition of IPL, Hayden, Symonds, Dwayne Smith all are set to use the mongoose bat according to its creator Marcus Codrington Fernandez, Director of Mongoose Cricket Ltd.

The handle of the bat is about 43% longer and blade 33% shorter than the conventional ones.  It is claimed that since there is no splice, the sweet spot is increased by 120%.

Earlier the bat had been formally launched by Matthew Hayden with much fanfare who endorsed the product – today he demonstrated its power hitting.  Today he started with conventional bat but in over 3 bowled by Sangwan he switched to mongoose bat much to the glare of the media.

The first use was a mistimed shot on to onside fetching a single. The rest of the over was played by Badri.  The fourth by Bhatia was different.  First one produced no run, the second delivery drifted to give Hayden and mongoose a boundary. Third was lofted straight for a six, 4^th was a four to fine leg; 5^th escaped and 6^th was again the maximum.

Playing further with the shorter, thicker bat Hayden smacked 93 off 43 and was instrumental in setting up the successful chase, out classing Virender Sehwag’s 74.  It was a wonder that Dirk Nannes did not try bouncing at the shorter bat.  Even before the arrival of mongoose, Hayden had displayed ominous form hitting 3 fours off first 8 he faced.  He further hit 6 across the line and seven over them.  His beastly hitting would have cleared the fence, even if he had used some other bat.  The end came when he hit Amit Mishra powerfully down the ground and Dilshan took a good catch – perhaps it would not have carried so much with a normal bat !!!

Regards – Sampathkumar.