IPL 2018 | SRH underline importance of bowlers in T20 format

And while Mumbai’s reputations of starting slow and firing on all cylinders after four-five matches are yet to see the light of the day, RCB has again left in the lurch following their one dismal performance after another at their own den. However, a closer look at the Sunrisers gives a sense of all-bases-covered, despite their batting unit lacking the cutting edge after David Warner’s untimely suspension following Sandpaper-gate. And yesterday's match against Kings XI Punjab has made the feeling even stronger.

After Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s injury, Sandeep Sharma, the former Kings XI Punjab pacer, had to bowl the first over of the innings and for sure, he had a definite plan against him. As a matter of fact, Gayle, who now suddenly finds himself as the most desired batsman in the league despite having a lacklustre 2017 IPL, was dismissed by Sharma seven times in the past and there was no way he could take chances against him. That’s why, instead of his regular belligerent approach, the burly Caribbean adopted a very cautious formula against him. At the same time, Sharma knew that he couldn’t afford to bowl a single bad ball to the man who has the unique ability to smoke any ball for six. Consequently, he kept on bowling at good lengths, giving nothing away, which resulted in he conceding just 11 runs in the first three overs.

As he kept on bowling, Sharma also realized that the ball was getting stuck on the pitch and that’s why bowling the knuckle balls or slower balls would be of great help. And following that trend, the other two pacers, including Basil Thampi and Siddarth Kaul, kept on avoiding the seam-up deliveries to confuse the batsmen and eventually led the team to second consecutive low-score defense. Kaul consistently hit the length hard on a surface where bounce was available, and along with his pace variations, he made life difficult for Punjab’s batsmen. He got some movement early on which meant the Punjab middle-order never really got going.

While the other teams are heavily reliant on their batsmen to give them stability - cue Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore - Hyderabad’s this type of performances in the tournament brings the pertinent question that who is more important in the current T20 cricket - batsman or bowler?

However, the bowling analysis of the Indian Premier League is actually a bigger revelation. Since 2013, in the IPL, the average first-innings score has been 162 and the teams who are able to restrict the oppositions to 10% under the par score, have been more successful than scoring 10% over the average by themselves. For a matter of fact, the analytics show that those who score 10% higher than the par score which is 178 or more manage to win 63% of games and on the contrary, the teams who restrict the opposition to 10% less than the par score that is 146 or under win 83% of matches. So, it is statistically proven that restricting a team to 15 runs under par is actually better than scoring 15 runs over par when you are batting. 

And that is exactly Sunrisers Hyderabad has been successful in the Indian Premier League in the last three years. Unlike the other teams, Sunrisers have been largely dependent on their bowlers, which landed them their maiden IPL title back in the year 2016. In their championship run, under the leadership of David Warner, Hyderabad’s seam attack, led by willy Mustafizur Rahman and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, with Ashish Nehra and Barinder Sran casting the supporting roles, took 82 wickets among themselves, which was the most among all teams. In that edition, their spinners, however, couldn’t come to the party and took just six wickets. They were, in fact, the only team to have an economy rate of less than eight runs an over, and had the best economy rate in the Power Play and the last five overs, which means their batsmen had a bigger cushion than the other teams. 

It helped then and in the last year, when Nehra and Mustafizur missed out on most parts of the season due to injuries, the team needed someone to assist Bhuvneshwar Kumar because Ben Cutting was no more the same player who won them the trophy in the 2016 edition. With Mohammed Siraj's lack of inexperience on the big stage proved to be costly for the team, Kaul immediately stepped up to have a breakthrough season with 16 wickets in 10 games, averaging 18.75 - quite brilliant for a bowler who was almost out of the scheme of things. 

For other teams in the league, either their pace bowling unit is menacing or their spin bowling and for that, you need to only be cautious against two three bowlers so as to negate the threat. However, even though, the batsmen can somehow have a field day against the Hyderabad pacers, Rashid Khan, being as incisive as ever, doesn’t let them go away with the match. The Afghanistan prodigy bowls at a fairly rapid clip like Indian spinning great Anil Kumble, and reading him at that pace is always going to be difficult. 

Having such a line-up which can be deadly on any day, the team would sleep peacefully at night despite knowing that their batting unit is way more fragile than they could have afforded as they are the one who have demonstrated the importance of having a good bowling unit and how that can change the results in a flash.