The IPL has made instant stars of many cricketers both domestic and international but for others their chance has come and gone all too soon. Here are the bowlers who got to bowl just one over in the richest T20 franchise in the league in the world.
Yalaka Gnaneswar Rao
Yalaka Gnaneshwara Rao comes from good cricketing stock being the younger brother of former India international Yalaka Venugopal Rao. Rao the younger seemed to be developing along a similar trajectory when he captained India’s U-19 team on a tour of England in 2002. Then 9 years later and having had only moderate success with his local side Andhra Pradesh as a bowling all-rounder, Gnaneshwara Rao was brought for INR 3,000,000 (approximately $40k) by the newly formed Kochi Tuskers Kerala franchise.
Gnaneshwara Rao had to wait until the penultimate match of the 2011 season to make his debut by which time the Tuskers’ season was already over as far as qualifying for the play-offs was concerned. With Rajasthan’s top order blown away, Rao came onto bowl his solitary over that went for 7 runs (3 dot balls). He might have bowled again but for the exploits of former Aussie international and part-time bowler Brad Hodge who took career best T20 figures of 4-13 as the Royal’s crumbled to 97 all out.
Rao was selected again for the final game of the season against Chennai Super Kings but did not bowl instead being promoted up the order to number 3 and making 19 from 17 deliveries. His last game in the IPL was of course The Tuskers’ last game as well with the Kerala based franchise being disbanded after just a solitary season.
Watch highlights of Yalaka Gnaneswar Rao and Prasanth Padmanabhan’s debuts in the IPL
Prasanth Padmanabhan
By coincidence, the Kochi Tuskers match against Rajasthan Royals contained not 1 but 2 one over wonders! Prasanth Padmanabhan’s first and last 6 balls in the IPL were a little more eventful as the young left-arm spinner was hit for 3 maximums by Aussie and IPL legend Shane Watson.
Prasanth Padmanabhan’s domestic T20 record was exemplary and he became the first bowler for Kerala state to take 50 wickets in the shortest format. Such form kept him in the spotlight and after leaving the Tuskers he would go on to have a couple of stints with the Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2013 and 2015 but he never made a single appearance for them before going unsold in the 2016 auction.
Despite his lack of opportunity in the IPL, Prasanth credits his time playing alongside the likes of Dale Steyn, Kane Williamson and Darren Sammy with a development in his game and with 64 victims he remains Kerala’s all-time leading wicket taker in the T20 format.
Rohan Gavaskar
Rohan Gavaskar is hardly the first or last player to have been overshadowed by a famous cricketing father and there are few within the Indian game who claim to cast a shadow as long (figuratively speaking) as the great Sunil Gavaskar.
Rohan was a stylish left-handed batsman who bowled useful slow left arm, a combination that was good enough to see him win 11 caps at ODI level for India. Despite that pedigree he only played twice in the IPL bowling a solitary over as the 7th bowler used for Kolkata Knight Riders in their win over Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2010.
He might have played more in the IPL had he not have chosen to join the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) in 2007 an act that saw him receive a 2 year ban from the BCCI. By the time that ban expired in 2009, Gavaskar was already 33 years old and his playing career would finish soon after.
Ajinkya Rahane
Renowned as being a rock in the middle order of India’s batting line-up, Rahane also has the honour of appearing on the list and in successful circumstances. His single over in the IPL came against Kings XI Punjab and ended with him claiming the wicket of Australian international Luke Pomersbach clean bowled by a very military medium delivery from Rahane.
Despite playing in excess of 200 T20 matches in a career that is still going strong, Rahane has never bowled again and looks unlikely to do so meaning that he could well finish with figures of 1 over, 5 runs, 1 wicket.
Lee Carseldine
Rahane is certainly not the only cricketer to have taken a wicket in his single IPL over and Australian Lee Carseldine can surely brag that he has claimed the biggest prize for bowlers in this category by dismissing Rahul Dravid. Indeed there are more established names in world cricket who have toiled away for day after day against the man nicknamed ‘The Wall’ without success but Carseldine did it first ball!
A degenerative back injury prevented Carseldine playing as much cricket as he would have hoped throughout a stop start career but having hung up his bowling spikes in 2013 he would go on to have a successful career in the media as a sports reporter and radio star. In 2016 he also appeared in the reality TV show Survivor.
Bharat Chipli & Ishan Malhotra
Having covered a couple of successful examples of one over wonders we now turn our attention to a pair who might have wished that they hadn’t been handed the ball especially when considering the man they were bowling to! Both Chipli and Malhotra bowled their solitary IPL overs in the same match for Deccan Chargers v Dehli Daredevils against one of the biggest hitting batsmen the world has ever seen – Virender Sehwag!
The Chargers line-up included the likes Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma, Dan Cristian and Amit Mishra who combined to have Dehli 25-3 in pursuit of 176 to win. However, Sehwag launched a stunning counter attack that started against Malhotra in the 8th over as he was dispatched for 23 including 2 x 4s and 2 x 6s. Next to the plate was Chipli a man who was an occasional bowler at best. By contrast the 20 that Sehwag took off his over might therefore be seen as a success! Sehwag was eventually out for 119 off 56 balls, with his century coming up off 48 balls. At the time it was the 6th fastest hundred in IPL history and remains the 15th fastest to this day.
Watch highlights of Sehwag’s century
While Chipli was rarely seen again as a bowler, Malhotra continues to this day to take on some of the biggest hitters in world cricket and despite not making the grade in the IPL he is a regular Abu Dhabi T10 league with his latest outing seeing him carted for 45 off 2 overs!