Yorkers, googlies showing the way

At this edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), two classic, highly coveted bowling skills have ruled the season: the yorker and the googly. With IPL13 being played at only three venues bowlers have had to be more imaginative. Be it the slower bouncer and low full toss for fast bowlers or the flippers and quicker deliveries for spinners. But if the main purpose of bowlers is to be economical then CricViz’s ball tracking data suggests that yorkers have been the most effective variation this time.

Remember that double Super Over humdinger involving Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) and Mumbai Indians? Four out of six deliveries Mohammad Shami bowled in the first eliminator were perfect yorkers, helping Kings XI Punjab tie the five-run Super Over bowled by Jasprit Bumrah where he got two yorkers right. In addition to conventional yorkers aimed at the batsman’s feet, bowlers aim for the stumps and in the channel (fourth and fifth stump line).

Pacers have also had to innovate with ‘wide’ yorkers because batsmen now use the width of the crease. The wide yorker is possibly the most difficult to nail since there is no feet to aim at. Err in line and you might concede a wide. Get the length wrong and it turns into a juicy half-volley.

But this season has been memorable, thanks to talent like Thangarasu Natarajan—son of a daily wage labourer and railway porter in Chennai—who has made a career out of firing yorkers. The Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) quick has bowled 21 wide yorkers, the maximum this term going into their game on Sunday. The best economy for that line is with Rajasthan Royals’ Kartik Tyagi. Till after game 48 on Wednesday, up to which data has been collated, Tyagi’s economy was 1.2 per over.

Natarajan also topped the list for the classic ‘stump’ yorkers, bowling 21 while Delhi Capitals’ Anrich Nortje was the most economical with that line at 2.25 runs per over. Overall, with an economy of 4.61, channel yorkers have been most hard to score off. Natarajan, with 17 balls, is No. 1 here as well while Tyagi returned the best economy of 1.2.

But pacers can’t usually execute six perfect yorkers so the slower ball is possibly the next best pace variation to use. It has seen better days when batsmen surprised by the lack of pace would commit early into the shot. But today’s batsman has learnt to wait. That explains the higher economy of slower balls this IPL. Still, it’s a better option than the leg-cutter that has returned unflattering numbers. Both the yorker and the slower delivery require a fair bit of practice and control. That explains why pacers have not been able to bowl these variations more frequently (see graphic).

At the other end of this spectrum is Rashid Khan, possibly the finest T20 spinner in the world. Not only does he have a chart-topping economy of five runs per over, Khan has displayed enviable control over the googly. Before Saturday’s match, Khan had the best economy for a spin variation: 5.5 runs per over for 145 googlies, almost 50% of all deliveries he has bowled this IPL. No bowler, spinner or pacer, has been this efficient with one variation. The closest competitor is Kings XI Punjab’s Ravi Bishnoi who has bowled more googlies than Khan but has also been more expensive.

In Sunrisers Hyderabad’s 88-run win against Delhi Capitals earlier this week, Khan returned figures of 4-0-7-3. The first googly Khan (out of five) bowled that match was so quick that it surprised Ajinkya Rahane, trapping him leg-before on the front-foot. And then there was the dream delivery that dismissed KL Rahul, this IPL’s most prolific batsman, last week.

Khan tossed it up, drawing the KXIP skipper into a cover-drive. Rahul leaned forward into the shot but the ball snaked past his inside edge to hit the middle-stump. Foxing a quality batsman like Rahul must have felt good but Khan said being economical still topped his priorities. “What I’m mainly focusing on is to bowl economically, whether I get wickets or not,” he said after the win against Delhi Capitals. “Dot balls help me to get wickets and it also helps the other end to get wickets. I just go with a clear mind, that’s my biggest strength. I want to bowl a good line and length, no matter the situation. You have to mix up and play with the batsman’s mind, and see the weak zone and strong zone of the batsman as well.”

Slower bowlers, especially leg-spinners, have done well this season. Seven out of the top 10 most economical bowlers with at least 150 deliveries (25 overs) in IPL13 are spinners. Four of them average seven runs or less per over with Khan topping the list. This edition has had a large number of leg-spinners. We have had Karn Sharma and Piyush Chawla (CSK), Amit Mishra (Delhi Capitals), Shreyas Gopal (RR), Varun Chakravarthy (KKR), Bishnoi and M Ashwin (KXIP), Yuzvendra Chahal (RCB) and Rahul Chahar (MI) but Khan has bettered them all. Sunil Gavaskar explained why. “Leg-spinners generally bowl a full toss, a short ball. He hardly ever does it,” Gavaskar told Star Sports in a post-match show. “He is on target every single time. He has got a nice, well-disguised googly which comes off the back of the hand. A lot of batsmen find it difficult to pick. That kind of bowling, that kind of control, any captain will say ‘give me that bowler’.”

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