ANALYSIS
Follow UsIt was an evening full of anticipation in Abu Dhabi. The finalists from the year before set the ball rolling for the delayed IPL season in 2020. The first innings was on. The game hung in the balance with Mumbai Indians batting at 151/6 after 18 overs. But a set Kieron Pollard – batting at 18*(13) – could have swelled the final total out of Chennai’s grasp in 12 remaining balls.
Gearing to bowl at Pollard in the 19th over was Lungi Ngidi. With figures of 1/33 in his three overs, Ngidi was having an off-day. The last ball he had bowled to Pollard in an over earlier was at a back of length with a cross-seam grip. Pollard played that with soft hands for a single.
The first ball of the 19th over was a repeat of what Ngidi had bowled to Pollard earlier. With 12 balls to go, Pollard did not have the luxury to defend it out. He tried to throw his bat at it, got a leading edge and into the pouch of MS Dhoni behind the stumps. All Mumbai could manage then was 11 runs in the last two overs. Ngidi ended with respectable figures of 3/38. Chennai scaled down a target of 163 with ease.
In the era of widespread usage of data and consistent preaching of match-ups, such dismissals should have had a domino effect. But, it was not to be. Having received two balls at an uncomfortable length in the first game, Pollard received only 17 off the 133 balls he faced from the pacers in that area in the rest of the tournament. Some teams even bowled spin at him in the death overs against whom he finished with a strike rate of an unmatched 196.2. Mumbai Indians finished the tournament with a run rate of 12.44 at the death, a difference of 1.99 runs per over with the next-best team Rajasthan (10.45). Pollard scored 250 off 126 balls in the remainder of the season.
The effect of Pollard on the entire Mumbai set-up was one of the underlying reason for their success last season. With good six months for teams to sit back and plan, the 2021 season has started on a different note.
When Bangalore met Mumbai in 2020, they tried to experiment with their leggies – Yuzvendra Chahal and Adam Zampa – bowling to Pollard at the death. He bludgeoned them for 42 off the 10 balls he faced to set up an eventually tied game. In their first game this season, Bangalore had Mohammed Siraj bowling at him in the 17th over. The fielders in the deep included a fine leg, deep square leg and a deep-midwicket. The first ball Siraj bowled was short which Pollard fended off his chest. Siraj repeated the same for the next two balls and Pollard could only scrap a single.
When Harshal Patel came onto bowl the 20th over, Pollard was 7*(8), four of which came from a top-edge off a slow bouncer from Kyle Jamieson. Harshal started with an off-cutter, at a length. Rattled by what transpired earlier, Pollard played third consecutive shot without control. The ball could not cross the fielder at deep square leg. Harshal ended with a five-wicket haul. Mumbai scored 31 runs in the last five overs, their lowest since 2015.
The trend did not stop there. There might be questions about Pat Cummins the T20 bowler, but bowling back of a length to corner a batsman is right up his alley. The first four balls Cummins bowled to Pollard in Mumbai’s second match further attested to Pollard’s discomfort to that length. The first ball had Pollard almost misjudging a single to get off strike, the second cut him in half, the third earned him a four off an inside edge and the fourth had him leaving the ball in the 16th over of an innings.
Bowling the 18th over from around the wicket was Andre Russell. He beat Pollard on the first ball, bowled at back of a length of course. The next was a sucker ball, full and wide. Pollard got an outside edge to the keeper for a second successive failure.
There were 19 balls bowled to him by pacers at the length he is uncomfortable to in the entire last season. The pacers have bowled 10 such deliveries in this season in two matches already. No bowler had ever taken a five-wicket haul against Mumbai in IPL’s history. Now two have done so in successive games. In both games, MI scored less than 40 runs in the last five overs.
A bowler considered good at the death is usually the one with a high yorker accuracy. But, in the case of Pollard, it becomes a high-risk option as either side of a yorker, his strike rate is above 200 as we can see from the graphic from last season.
What might also be helping the bowlers is the wicket in Chennai – where MI play their first five games – and also the boundary dimensions. As Virat Kohli pointed out after the first game, “The shot that Pollard got out to, invariably in Wankhede and a couple of other stadiums that's sailing into the stand.” Thus giving more leverage for the bowlers to be courageous enough to induce a mistimed shot.
All this could change very soon through a change of venue or a change in tactics from the opposition. But for now, there is a template laid out to rest Mumbai’s carnage in the decisive death overs.
