OPINION
Follow UsThe Indian Premier League 2022 is finally over, with Hardik Pandya’s Gujarat Titans emerging victorious in their very first year as a franchise, and it’s now time to reflect on what was a long and successful season. Some of the outcomes were predictable, but at the same time, we also saw some major trends emerge largely because of the addition of two new franchises.
Emergence of Indian seamers
The Indian spinners have always been preferred over their overseas counterparts in this competition but this is probably the first time we saw the home-grown pacers out bowling quite a few quality foreign fast bowlers. It was heartening to see so many young Indian seamers emerge and stamp their authority at this level, while the likes of Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami also managed to prove their effectiveness. Amongst the top-10 pacers who picked up the most number of wickets in the league stage, seven were Indian. The numbers have only gone up in the last few seasons (six in 2021, four in 2020).
Kagiso Rabada and Andre Russell had better strike rates but weren’t as consistent and economical as Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Khaleel Ahmed, Arshdeep Singh and Mohsin Khan. It was them bowling the crucial overs, and more often than not, did the job for their respective franchises. Overall, Indian pacers (8.53) operated at a better economy rate than their overseas equivalents (9). Then there was Umran Malik who hogged most of the limelight just with his sheer pace. The paceman from Jammu and Kashmir constantly operated above 150 kph and even clocked 156.9 kph - the fastest ball of IPL 2022. And, we haven’t even mentioned Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar yet. The two experienced campaigners didn’t get too many wickets but were among the top-four economical seamers in IPL 2022.
However, one of the biggest talking points to emerge from this year’s IPL was the performance of Indian left-arm seamers. India have been craving for a quality left-armer for a while now and they finally have some pretty exciting options to work with. In the league stage, no other bowler bowled more overs than Arshdeep at the death. Amongst fast bowlers, the 23-year-old had the second-best economy (7.9) in that phase, and has now been picked for the South Africa series. Meanwhile, T Natarajan was once again amongst wickets, while Mukesh Choudhary got the ball to talk in the powerplay. Khaleel had his best IPL season but it was Mohsin who was the most impressive across all three phases. The tall left-armer had the second-best economy in the tournament (minimum 20 overs) and it won’t be too long before he breaks into the Indian side as well.
“Batters win you games, bowlers win you tournaments”
The phrase is very common but it’s as true as it gets. Gujarat, Rajasthan Royals, Lucknow Super Giants and Royal Challengers Bangalore had the most-complete bowling attacks in the tournament and all four of them made it through to the playoffs. The aforementioned four teams had the best bowling average in the league stage and also had impressive strike rates. They had most of their bases covered and it reflected on the field. Almost every team had at least one or two world-class bowlers but not many had a well-rounded attack. But, that wasn't the case with these four.
Gujarat (Rashid Khan), Rajasthan (Yuzvendra Chahal, R Ashwin), Lucknow (Krunal Pandya, Ravi Bishnoi) and Bangalore (Wanindu Hasaranga) had at least one quality spinner in their arsenal and most of them were consistent throughout the event. In the pace department, Bangalore had Josh Hazlewood for all three phases, while Harshal Patel exploits at the death is well-known. The Super Giants had Avesh and Mohsin, while Gujarat’s seam attack was led by Shami, with skipper Hardik Pandya chipping in every now and then. For Rajasthan, Trent Boult and Prasidh Krishna did a decent job, especially in the powerplay, with Obed McCoy taking care of the death bowling in the games he played.
Not too many quality overseas players on offer?
There are so many Indian talents on offer that playing less than four overseas players in your XI is no longer a taboo in a tournament where foreign stars used to be the lynchpins of every franchise. In IPL 2022, there were 15 instances of franchises playing fewer than four overseas players – including twice when only two were included. Now, you could argue that a team like Mumbai Indians got their combination wrong when they decided to leave out Tim David, Riley Meredith and Daniel Sams and just went with two overseas players, but it’s also a fact that teams like Rajasthan and Delhi Capitals put more trust on domestic talents than some of the foreign players sitting on the bench.
This mostly happened in the first half of the event, with some of the quality overseas players not being available for a couple of games. Meanwhile, some of the other overseas stars decided to skip this year’s IPL and as a result, more and more local players got opportunities, thanks to their better understanding of the conditions. Gujarat, Bangalore and Hyderabad were the only ones who played four overseas players in every single game. The likes of Dominic Drakes, Noor Ahmad, Benny Howell, Tim Seifert, Lungi Ngidi, Chamika Karunaratne, Kyle Mayers, Nathan Ellis, Daryl Mitchell and some of the other stars were mostly there just to warm the bench. The franchises have rightly started relying more on Indian players and it won’t come as a surprise if we see more of this happening in the coming years.
Retained players underperform
There were many retained players who had a lackluster season for their respective franchises. These are the players who you build your team around, but if they fail, the entire combination disrupts. Just ask Kolkata Knight Riders! Venkatesh Iyer (182 runs at 16.54) and Varun Chakravarthy (6 wickets at 55.33) were so bad that Kolkata had to leave them out of the playing XI. Then there was Kane Williamson, who was unarguably the worst player in this year’s IPL. The Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper had the worst strike rate (93.5) in the competition. Bangalore qualified for the playoffs but they hardly got anything from Virat Kohli (341 runs at 22.73) and Mohammed Siraj (9 wickets at 57.11). The former RCB captain registered three golden ducks, while Siraj operated at an economy of more than 10.
Meanwhile, the captaincy didn’t quite work out for Mayank Agarwal and Ravindra Jadeja. Agarwal, who was brilliant in the last two seasons, could only score 196 runs in 12 innings at an average of 16.33. By the end of the season, the right-hander was batting in the middle-order. Meanwhile, Jadeja had one of his worst IPL editions. The allrounder had a batting average of less than 20 and a bowling average of close to 50. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Moeen Ali were below-par as per their standards and so were Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah. Kieron Pollard (144 runs at 14.4) too was a massive disappointment and so was Anrich Nortje, who struggled with his fitness throughout the tournament.
There were some retained players who were exceptional. We all know what Jos Buttler did for Rajasthan, with Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal too making match-winning contributions. Andre Russell and Sunil Narine did what they always do for Kolkata. Arshdeep Singh once again proved his credentials, especially at the death. Prithvi Shaw and Umran Malik were superb for Delhi and Hyderabad respectively, while the likes of Glenn Maxwell, Rishabh Pant and Suryakumar Yadav too had their moments.
Normalising ‘retired out’
Well, this only happened once but we are probably going to see a lot of this in the future. It was R Ashwin who became the first player to be 'retired out' in the history of IPL. Against Lucknow, the off-spinner willingly walked off the field in the penultimate over, declaring himself 'retired out'. That allowed Riyan Parag to arrive at the crease and the young man smoked a six off one of the four balls he faced. The Royals eventually won the game by three runs. RCB skipper Faf du Plessis also spoke about how he was “contemplating retiring out” against SRH to allow in-form Dinesh Karthik to come in to bat sooner.
"T20, as a sport, is heading towards where football has reached. Just like how they're using substitutions, I did something similar. Already we're late, but I believe this will happen a lot in the coming days," Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
