OPINION
Follow UsIf Harpreet Brar had access to a time machine, he would probably turn back the clock and erase the term ‘matchup’ altogether from the cricketing dictionary.
For what the concept of a matchup has effectively done is restrict bowlers like Brar from bowling more, playing a bigger part with the ball in matches — notwithstanding conditions — because, in theory, they are likely to fail against a particular type of batter (a left-handed batter in Brar’s case).
Consider this: prior to Saturday, Brar, by definition a bowling all-rounder, had played in 10 of Punjab’s first 11 matches. Yet he’d completed his quota of 4 overs in just a solitary match. In fact, he bowled more than 3 overs in just 2 of the 10 games he featured in and astonishingly was unused against Chennai at Chepauk. AT CHEPAUK.
All because of the matchup theory that bowling a left-arm spinner to a left-hander = bad.
The theory is not baseless by any means. Years and years of data have suggested that batters tend to fare way better against balls turning into them as opposed to the ones that turn away.
In fact, even the IPL 2023 numbers validate the matchup concept.
This year, left-hand batters have scored at a SR of 131.3 against left-arm spinners, hitting a six every 15.09 balls. In contrast, right-handers have only managed to score against left-arm spinners at a SR of 121.03, hitting a six every 18.12 balls. (Among players who have batted in the Top six).
A drop-off of 10 is huge, and this alone is proof enough that matchup is not a hoax. It’d be naive to not respect or dismiss data outrightly.
What these past two Punjab Kings matches have shown us, however, is that matchups are not the be-all and end-all. Sometimes, you need to do what the condition and the situation demands; not blindly go with what the data tells you.
Cast your mind back to the clash between Punjab and Kolkata on May 8th at the Eden, where Shikhar Dhawan was tasked with defending 179 on an Eden wicket that offered more turn than usual, and lots of grip.
After a quickfire start to the chase — 63/1 off 7 — KKR could only score 15 more runs in the following three overs, and, in addition to that, they also lost the man who provided them with the rapid start, Jason Roy.
The opener, after being fed 23 balls of pace and part-time bowling, fell to his negative matchup (left-arm spin) on the very first ball. Brar was introduced into the attack, and Roy immediately holed out.
Two more quiet overs — bowled by Chahar and Ellis respectively — followed, and suddenly, the equation for KKR looked slightly daunting: 104 needed off the last 10.
In 2023, no chasing side in the world gets intimidated by an asking rate of 10.4, but this was a surface on which the spinners were incredibly hard to put away: after 30 overs in the game, spinners had figures of 6/106 off 16 overs, which is an economy of 6.62.
Punjab had six more overs of Chahar and Brar up their sleeve, so it was by no means ‘crazy’ to deem them favourites at the halfway point of the chase. All they had to do was, well, go with the flow.
Here’s where Dhawan and Punjab complicated things for themselves. With two left-handers in the middle — Rana and Venkatesh Iyer — the Kings, looking at the contest from a purely theoretical perspective, decided that they’d be better off throwing the ball to Liam Livingstone (who bowls part-time off-spin) than Brar, who’d conceded just four runs off his first over while dismissing Roy.
Livingstone, they felt, ‘matched up’ better to the two lefties than Brar, giving no consideration whatsoever to how the surface was playing.
What ensued was the following: Rana took 16 off Livingstone’s over, wrestled back the momentum and KKR eventually went on to register a five-wicket win on the last ball.
Oh, and yes, Brar ended the match with figures of 1-0-4-1.
Fast forward to the clash on Saturday (May 13) between Punjab and Delhi at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
Delhi had got off to a flyer, Brar took out the RHB opener and by the 8th over, the chasing side had two lefties batting in the middle. Déjà vu for Punjab and Dhawan.
Except on this occasion, Dhawan stuck with the left-arm spin of Brar, most likely due to revisiting the tactics he deployed against KKR.
He did it even though the ‘matchup’ begged him not to: Warner’s SR vs left-arm spin in all T20s since 2021 was 156. Rossouw’s? 195.2.
The end result was that Brar ended up dismissing both Warner and Rossouw in the same over. The double-strike turned the match in Punjab’s favour and they did not look back post those two wickets.
Two similar matches, two similar chases, but distinctly different results. And the difference in the result was ultimately down to how brave Dhawan and Punjab were when it came to deploying Brar against his negative matchup.
What does this tell us?
These two games have by no means debunked the existence of matchups. But they’ve certainly projected a couple of things.
The first — as a captain, and as a bowling side, it is imperative that you base your decisions factoring in the nature of the surface, and taking a call instinctively.
A left-arm spinner to an LHB batter might be a death sentence to the bowler on a flat surface, but it’s a pretty even contest on a wicket (like Delhi, or even Kolkata the other day) that provides turn and grip in abundance. The Rossouw and Warner dismissals probably would have been a six and a four respectively on a track like Wankhede, but, on the night, the extra bite on the surface ended up providing an edge to the bowler.
Secondly, it is never ideal to trust your ‘positive matchup’ part-time spinner over a ‘negative matchup’ specialist bowler. On any surface, let alone on a track offering lots of turn.
There can be rare exceptions but you’ve picked specialist spinners in the XI for a reason. Snubbing them and throwing the ball to a part-time spinner makes little sense, and will more often than not prove to be a bust.
Forget the Livingstone example from the KKR game, we’ve got two recent examples in the form of Nitish Rana opening the bowling for KKR and Abhishek Sharma bowling at the death for SRH. Both were matchup-induced tactical decisions and well, both backfired.
Matchups have forced captains to undervalue and underutilize their specialist spinners (specifically finger-spinners), which is why someone like Harpreet Brar would probably be wishing he had a time machine so that he can do away with the dreaded term for good.
Amidst all this, there’s an irony: Brar, in his IPL career, has a better economy, average and strike rate against left-handers (6.7 / 22.6 / 20.2) as compared to the righties (8.0 / 33.8 / 25.5).
So, #JustPunjabKingsThings?
