In Chennai, Harshal Patel of the Royal Challengers Bangalore was assigned the duty of bowling his four overs in the second half of the innings. Chetan Sakariya of the Rajasthan Royals bowled both with the new ball and in the death overs. And Avesh Khan of the Delhi Capitals was extremely impressive in all phases of the game. These three Indian medium-pacers were the story of the 29 games played in this year’s IPL so far.
In T20 cricket the two most troublesome phases to bowl in are the first six overs and the final 4. In the early years of the IPL, the majority of the overs in these intervals have been bowled by the abroad bowlers.
However progressively the Indian internationals started to share this accountability. Still, whereas Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar grew into two of the most interesting quick bowlers in the world in these phases of a T20. The relaxation of the younger – and even older – Indian quick bowlers have been nonetheless lower than the mark.
A curtailed IPL does not provide us with a reasonable sample size of matches to form a firm opinion, but there was enough to suggest that there has been a significant shift in the roles and responsibilities of young uncapped Indian fast bowlers in the tournament.
“The first name I have written is Avesh. He has impressed a lot this year because Nortje was not there and even Rabada was not there in the beginning. He bowled consistently well right from the first match where he struck Faf on the pads and MS Dhoni’s stumps,” Aakash Chopra told in his Youtube channel.
Read more: WHICH RCB PLAYER COUNTS KEVIN PIETERSEN AS HIS FIRST T20I WICKET?
Sakariya started as an unknown but immediately made an impression. He has the skills to make the ball move both ways in the air, has both back-of-the-hand and off-cutter slower ones, and the temperament needed to bowl wide yorkers.
Harshal Patel, the holder of the purple cap, seemed to turn over a new leaf in his IPL career this year. There aren’t many categories of fast bowlers in the T20 cricket – the two main ones are those who are good with the new ball and the ones who specialize in bowling at the death. Patel might belong to the latter group, but impressively, he made the most of his skills on the slow surface in Chennai.
Once the ball got old, it started to grip the pitch, and the bigger boundaries allowed the fast bowlers to roll their fingers over the ball with more confidence. T20 cricket isn’t long enough for bowlers to set up dismissals but it does allow you to use the match situation. Patel often started his spells around the 12th over – when the opposition is typically looking to break free. He used his off-cutter variation to take the pace off the ball and otherwise bowled really straight – though not attempting to get under the bat.
