Bowlers behind Hyderabad’s triumph

Subhash Rajta

Tribune News Service

chandigarh, May 30

Many would have put their money on Royal Challengers Bangalore, the best batting side in the league,  in the final against Sunrisers Hyderabad, the best bowling side this season, on Sunday. It made sense —after all it’s generally the batsmen who win or lose T20 matches played on the wickets and grounds designed to suit their needs; the bowlers are almost incidental in the IPL. 

Surprisingly, the best bowling side sneaked past the best batting side to walk away with the trophy. Even though Hyderabad didn’t win the final flexing their bowling muscle — the batsmen put up a match-winning total of 208 runs for them — their journey to the final was largely powered by their bowling might, helped by their skipper David Warner’s brilliance with the willow.

Apart from how well they bowled in the Powerplays and death overs, which could be a little intangible at times, a look at the Man of the Match awards collected by Hyderabad this season makes the pivotal role the bowlers played crystal clear. Hyderabad bagged nine Man of the Match awards — four for bowling efforts shared by Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra and Mustafizur Rahman, David Warner collected three for his batting, while Moises Henriques and Ben Cutting shared the remaining two for their all-round performance.

Bangalore, too,  collected nine awards, with Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers winning eight between them. The ninth was picked by all-rounder Shane Watson, with the bowlers not turning in a single award-winning performance.

Restricting opposition 

Even in the matches where a batsman was adjudged the Man of the Match, the bowlers had already done half the job by restricting the opposition to a below-par score. For instance, in the Hyderabad vs Mumbai Indians match on April 18 where Warner was given the award for his explosive unbeaten 90, the bowlers had made it quite easy for the batsmen by restricting Mumbai to a modest 142.

In all, Hyderabad restricted the opposition while bowling first to a below-150 total four times; Bangalore, on the other hand, could do it only once.

VVS Laxman, Hyderabad’s mentor, was quick to admit the massive role the bowlers played in the triumph. “In any format, ultimately bowlers win you the matches,” he said. “We realised we needed quality bowlers and we went after them in the auction.”

“Ashish Nehra was brilliant, he was the leader. He helped each one prepare well for the matches. Unfortunately, he was injured. Bhuvi and Mustafizur Rahman took the responsibility in his absence,” he said.

Bhuvneshwar and Rahman picked up 40 wickets between them, that, too, at an economy rate of below 7.5.  The likes of Nehra (9 wickets), Barinder Sran (14) and Moises Henriques (12) complemented the two really well. 

Interestingly, Kohli too, believes that it’s the bowlers who win matches for the team. He had made his thoughts absolutely clear on the subject when he was appointed captain of the Test team. Yet, he has somehow ended up with arguably the weakest bowling attack in the league.  Does he see the bowlers in a different light in T20 then? It doesn’t seem so as he appreciated the bowlers’ role in Hyderabad’s triumph. “Why Sunrisers won is because they have a strong bowling attack,” he said.  Perhaps, we will see him adding more muscle to his attack as and when he could.