Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan shields himself against the dust during the storm. Picture by Gautam Bose

Calcutta, May 18: Ashok Dinda may for a long time be haunted by one of cricket lore’s most famous on-field jibes about dropped catches, delivered by Steve Waugh to Herschelle Gibbs.

When Parthiv Patel miscued a pull in the Chennai Super Kings’ innings tonight, Dinda made a mess of the skier and allowed a run in the bargain. It may have sealed the Kolkata Knight Riders’ fate in the Indian Premier League.

Two balls and four runs later, a dust storm and rain stopped play and the visitors, perhaps the Knights’ closest competitors for a semi-final spot, scraped through by the Duckworth-Lewis method. The Knights’ 149 for five was worth 52 in DL calculations while Chennai finished at 55-0.

What if Dinda had held the catch, in the process preventing the single, too? Chennai would have finished at 54-1, and the fall of the wicket would have raised the Knights’ DL score to 54. The game would have been a tie, raising the Knights’ tally by one point (to 11 in 11 games) while slashing Chennai’s by one (to 13 off 11).

What if the new batsman had failed to score those four runs in the next two balls? Sourav Ganguly’s boys would have defeated Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team, leaving both at 12 points from 11 games.

“The ball was drifting in the wind…. I failed to judge it properly. I’m very sorry about it but that’s the way it goes,” Dinda told The Telegraph.

He is right, but would be luckier than Gibbs to be allowed to forget the missed catch if the Knights fail to make the semis.

During the 1999 World Cup, after the South African had grassed him in a needle match, Waugh is believed to have taunted him: “You just dropped the World Cup, son.”

Chennai could well be the team that ultimately denies the Knights, now sixth in the standings, a last-four spot.

Now Sourav’s boys must win their three remaining matches, preferably by large margins to step up their poor net run rate which, at – 0.026, is fifth on the table.

But even if they do that against the Rajasthan Royals on Tuesday, the Delhi DareDevils on Thursday and Kings XI Punjab on Sunday, they must still hope that other results go their way.

The Knights can at best gain 16 points but depending on the permutations, the Jaipur, Mumbai, Chennai and Mohali teams could each finish with 18.

The Mumbai Indians were well on their way today with a 25-run win over the Deccan Chargers. Calcutta can only hope that bottom-rankers Chargers and Royal Challengers pull off a surprise or two in their remaining games.

But more ominous news came for the Knights’ fans after the match, with Salman Butt firing shots at the team management.

The Pakistani was the home team’s star today with a 54-ball 73. But the opener -- Man-of-the-Series against Bangladesh before coming here, with 451 runs in five matches -- didn’t hide his disappointment at having to sit out several games.

“It takes time to settle down in Twenty20. I was playing well in Pakistan and was in good form. I came and sat out a couple of matches. Sitting out does take a little bit of form out of you,” he said.

Butt was also unhappy at the Knights coming up with seven opening combinations in 11 games. “Well, I don’t decide the opening combination,” he said.