Sunrisers’ middle order woes, the Lynn-Narine carnage sees KKR book play-off berth

The Sunrisers had nothing to lose from this game having qualified for the play-offs already as one of the top two teams. A win would have cemented their top spot on the table – but first or second doesn’t really matter as both teams get at least two chances in the play-offs to get to the final. For them, this match was to carry out experiments before the Qualifiers begin.

But the Knight Riders had everything at stake, a loss would have put their play-off spot in jeopardy and they would have had to count on other teams to get to play-offs.

And, in such desperation, they put up a great fight after Sunrisers had gotten off to a flier. After the first 15 overs of the match, the Sunrisers slipped and the Knight Riders wrested control and maintained their grip till the end to ease to a five-wicket win and book a play-off berth.

And, the key components of this win were...

The Lynn-Narine blast-off

There’s a reason why Kane Williamson entrusts Bhuvneshwar Kumar to bowl at the beginning. Of course, any captain will trust Bhuvneshwar to bowl at any stage of the game. But at the beginning, he’s so good. If there’s any assistance for swing, he’d exploit it with the new ball. And, the mere variations that he’s got, teams might not want to go after him from the start. The risk is too much.

But Chris Lynn doesn’t care. He feasts on fast bowling. He can destroy even the best of them. When the Knight Riders brought him for Rs 9.6 crore, they most probably knew that he’d scored over 11 runs per over against pacers in T20s since 2016.

So, B Kumar to C Lynn, first over, third ball: pitched short and a little wide but that’s wide enough for Lynn, he swiftly shuffles back and slashes it to the point boundary.

Two balls later, Bhuvneshwar bowls one shorter and wider. Bhuvneshwar doesn’t bowl many of those these days. And, Bhuvneshwar most certainly can’t bowl that to Lynn. Same result: four runs, but with more power and control, which would’ve been a shot of confidence for Lynn.

10 runs scored off Bhuvneshwar’s first over. Not many can manage that when he bowls the first over.

Next up, Sandeep Sharma, the fourth most economical bowler in the IPL. In the Powerplay, he pitches the ball so often in the good length, that it’s really difficult for the batsmen to score off him. And, that’s what Sandeep tried to do against Narine in the second over.

1.2: good length ball, going away: Narine slashes it to the point boundary (even if that wasn’t the intended area)

1.3: good length ball, coming in: Narine comes down the ground and swings the bat with scant regard for the delivery. The ball takes the edge and careens to the fine leg boundary.

1.4: good length ball, outside off: It’s a night where Narine’s edges go to boundaries. This one he middles, wants the ball to go to the covers and that’s where it goes.

Chris Lynn doesn’t mind risk. Sunil Narine probably doesn’t know what it means. These guys lasted together only for 16 balls. But 52 runs came off it. The chase got so much easier for the Knight Riders against this IPL’s best (arguably) bowling attack after that opening partnership.

Sunrisers’ bowling on the wane

Three Sunrisers matches ago, a debate wasn’t required to say who the best bowling attack in this IPL was. They were outliers. The numbers proved it. For a phase, the Sunrisers batsmen scored low and asked their bowlers to walk a tight rope to win games for them. And, the Sunrisers bowlers made that their routine. They defended totals of 118, 132, 151, 146 against some of the batting behemoths of IPL.

Defending a less-than-run-a-ball-total is as astonishing as pulling off a 220-plus chase. T20 might be a batsmen’s game, but the Sunrisers bowlers ruled it for a few matches. But the last four games, teams have gone past 170 against them – twice during a chase. This piece of data from May 13 is a cause for concern for the Sunrisers.

Of course, these doesn’t diminish much the quality of this attack. But as they embark the play-off stage, the team management would have liked their bowlers keeping up their form.

Middle order woes continue

If the change in their bowling trends worry Sunrisers, the problems in their middle order would worry them more. Once again, the middle order killed the impetus provided by the top order, taking away a chunk of runs from the expected total. This sore thumb, for several games, was masked nicely by the team’s stupendous bowling effort. But on Saturday night, like a few previous nights, the lack of contribution in the middle order did them in.

Shikhar Dhawan and Sreevats Goswami provided Sunrisers their second-best start in this IPL, scoring 60 in the Powerplay. They also put up the highest opening stand for their team this season (79) before Goswami got out. At this stage, Sunrisers were still going close to 10 runs per over.

Williamson came in and kept up the scoring rate till he fell for a 17-ball 36. Even while Dhawan got out in the 16th over, Sunrisers were 141/3 and looking good for 200, which would have made it incredibly tough for KKR. But after Dhawan’s departure, they slowed down and imploded. In the last five overs, they made 31 runs and lost seven wickets.

But Williamson didn’t sound too bothered after the match. “We’ve played on such a variety of surfaces, and that’s been a strength of ours actually. We just need to do a couple of adjustments (before the play offs),” he said post-match.