The two MI spinners, Mitchell Santner and Mayank Markande combined for 6-0-83-1 and, as Gaurav Sundararaman, our analyst, explained on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show, it was down to the lengths. The MI spinners bowled 27% of their deliveries full, and another 18.9% were yorkers or full-tosses. For RCB, the corresponding numbers were: full 4.2%, yorkers 4.2%, and no full-tosses.
“It shows that the MI batsmen are not prepared to use their feet against the spinners. If you really have to be good against these lengths, you need to use your feet, come down the pitch and then try and take them on or hit straight,” Rayudu said. “All MI batsmen, maybe not Rohit [Sharma, who retired hurt], they don’t like to step out. They just want to play square of the wicket and they’re waiting for a short ball or they’re waiting for a fuller ball. If they don’t do that [come down], I’m sure a lot of spinners will be quite effective against this batting line-up.”
Krunal, the IPL veteran who played six seasons with MI before moving to RCB via Lucknow Super Giants, stressed on being “one step ahead” of the batter with his bag of tricks, and talked up Suyash, who is in his fourth IPL season and continues to be a consistent performer.
“I just wanted to be one step ahead and keep the batsman guessing and that worked for us. And yes, Suyash bowled really well. Taking those two wickets in [his] first over changed the momentum. And I always believe bowling is about partnerships. And we were able to do that for the team, which was quite satisfying,” Krunal said of the overs they bowled in tandem: Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10, which went for 37 runs.
“He [Suyash] has been getting better. I’ll give a lot of credit to Malolan [Rangarajan], who is our spin-bowling coach [and player identification manager]. He has been constantly working with Suyash in the off-season as well as during the season. He is always having conversations with him. And credit goes to Suyash that he has been able to adapt to things and he has been able to be consistent as a bowler, which always helps in a game where batters are taking you every ball.”
“I don’t pre-plan that I want to bowl a fourth- or a fifth- or a sixth-ball bouncer. There are days where I’ll bowl two bouncers back-to-back and suddenly I’ll bowl first ball and a sixth ball. So there are no such plans. But yeah, it’s more sort of a gut feeling when to bowl which ball and I just commit 100% to that”
Krunal Pandya
Krunal himself is all about consistency in line and length, changes of pace, and tricks. Like the bouncer. Like the ball he delivers after crouching low in his delivery stride.
“I have never shied away from trying different and new things,” he said. “Because if you see, with the impact player rule, previously without an impact player, you had No. 6 allrounder or No. 7 allrounder. Batsmanship was quite different. But now, having eight pure batters and the skill set [they have], you see young boys like Mukul [Choudhary] and Vaibhav [Sooryavanshi], so many of them are just coming and hitting from ball one consistently. So again, as a bowler, I always want to be one step ahead with the skill set as well as with the mental battle as well.
“Whether it’s me bending my knee and bowling a bouncer, I’m glad that it is coming out well and hope that in this format, there are fingerspinners who will survive and who can take something out of it and do well in this format. Because for fingerspinners, with flat tracks and eight batters, it has become very difficult.”
One of Krunal’s paths out of the difficult situation is to be unpredictable.
“I don’t pre-plan that I want to bowl a fourth- or a fifth- or a sixth-ball bouncer,” he said. “There are days where I’ll bowl two bouncers back-to-back and suddenly I’ll bowl first ball and a sixth ball. So there are no such plans. But yeah, it’s more sort of a gut feeling when to bowl which ball and I just commit 100% to that.
“I’ve been able to get batsmen out with spin and deceiving [them] in the flight. I don’t practise that much where I go and bowl bouncers. It is just I bowl [them] in the game.”
