Sunrisers Hyderabad was IPL-11’s most effective bowling unit. On its way to the final, the side successfully defended targets on five of eight occasions. Four of those were between 119 and 152, scores routinely chased down these days. And yet, Sunrisers found ways of derailing pursuits. We analyse how they managed it.
Ball-centric focus
First, why did the outfit focus its attention on the ball?
“A good batting side has to score ten more than the par score on any ground to defend it,” says Shrinivaas Chandrasekaran, the team’s performance analyst, “whereas a good bowling side, even if it scores ten less, can manage.”
Depth, Shrinivaas says, is essential. “Our conscious effort was to play five genuine bowlers who also lent variety to the attack; who had different skill-sets and operated in different phases of the game.
“The only way to stop the run-flow is to keep taking wickets. For that, we needed strike-bowlers. Months before the auction, we sat on a list we had drawn up and discussed back-up options for each of our first-choice bowlers,” he adds.
The result was a meticulously constructed line-up, which included the season’s standout bowler — Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan.
The Rashid Factor
Rashid’s biggest strength is his ability to consistently hit a good length. And his pace doesn’t allow batsmen to reach or get to the ball. They’re almost always pushed to play on the back foot, as Anil Kumble observed.
When he strayed from this, Rashid was expensive — in consecutive matches against Kings XI Punjab (Chris Gayle took him apart) and Chennai Super Kings (Suresh Raina laid into him).
But the SRH think-tank ensured that this was swiftly sorted out.
“He watched footage from those two games,” Shrinivaas says. “We found he had bowled a tad slower and fuller than usual. It hadn’t allowed the ball to spin that much. We had a break of three days and it helped. He worked on landing the ball in the good-length area. Once he lands there, it becomes very difficult for the batsmen.”
Rashid hit a good length 75% of the time; among leg-spinners this season, only Yuzvendra Chahal (76%) did it more frequently. And 18 of Rashid’s 21 wickets came from this length.
He was less effective against left-handers, who had a strike-rate of 155 runs per 100 balls against him, as opposed to right-handers’ 97. Even off a good length, left-handers scored at a rate of 128.4, compared to right-handers’ 88.8.
Left-handers also seemed to handle his googly better. They scored quickly against it and only one lost his wicket. “I bowl the wrong ’un much better to righties,” Rashid said in an interview, although he didn’t elaborate on why that was.
His disguise, though, was exceptional. When Kumble analysed Rashid’s action for STAR Sports, he found that he cocked his wrist slightly when he ran in for the leg-break; he didn’t for the googly. His leg-break grip was similar to an off-spinner’s (index and middle fingers split wide, either side of the seam) and his googly grip resembled a seamer’s (fingers together, over the seam).
But most of this was either only visible from behind the bowler or needed slow motion to pick up. All a batsman saw was the wrist turn over the same way.
Planning and execution
Shrinivaas says the team went into each game with two sets of bowling plans. “We discuss each opposition batsman, how to bowl at him, what fields to set. We come up with [the best bowling] match-ups for each batsman, and who should bowl at what stage. This is Plan-A. Sometimes a batsman tops Plan-A. So we have Plan-B.”
The nature of the wicket is factored in. For instance, at one stage during the league phase, there was a shift from knuckle balls to yorkers. This was so striking that captain Kane Williamson was asked about it. He put it down to the conditions.
Shrinivaas explains why: “When the wickets are very flat, the knuckle ball doesn’t hold up. It just skids through, becoming a free hit. So, we had to go back to the defensive plan, which is to bowl yorkers, probably the best ball on those wickets.”
The weather can upset plans, as it did in Pune. “We expected the ball to swing even more than it had in the first innings. But, unfortunately, the wind flow stopped. It wasn’t very fluid. It started swirling around and the ball stopped swinging completely. Whereas, for them (CSK), the wind, at least initially, was consistently blowing across from left to right. So, they got swing from both ends.”
Ambati Rayudu scored his first IPL ton and CSK won that game by eight wickets, but SRH gained something even in defeat. Shrinivaas says they found a pattern in Rayudu’s batting, planned accordingly, and “executed it to perfection” in Qualifier-1. “We decided to bowl yorkers early in his innings because he was setting up only for short balls then.” The effect: Rayudu castled for a first-ball 0.
Kaul's knuckle ball
The use of the knuckle ball was a significant part of the bowling strategy. Shrinivaas says the team, after analysing the conditions, focused on knuckle balls, off-cutters, and slow, wide, full deliveries. The yorker was more a flat-track option.
And of SRH’s pacers, no one bowled more knuckle balls (106) than Siddarth Kaul or took more wickets (9) with them. He even used it 43% of the time at the death (overs 17-20).
A key to the knuckle ball’s success is its deception. Batsmen pick it when they don’t see the bowler’s fingertips at delivery; it’s bowled with the fingers bent, resting behind the seam. When they see the fingertips, they know it’s seam-up. But as Sanjay Manjrekar observed, Kaul’s fingertips aren’t visible in either case.
Asked if this is something Kaul consciously worked on, Shrinivaas says, “It’s not conscious, it might be natural. But he worked on his knuckle ball for two or three years. He loads up exactly the same way he loads up for his seam-up delivery. We worked really hard to get that, so the batsmen don’t get a clue. Because if they do, there’s no point bowling it.”
The numbers do suggest, however, that batsmen got better at dealing with Kaul’s knuckle ball. In May, they had a strike rate of 167.9 against it at the death, compared to April’s 116.2.
Keeping it simple
The letdown in the final was a consequence of deviating from what had served Sunrisers so well. Shrinivaas says the team recognised where it went wrong to Shane Watson. “The length we most bowled to Watson — short, and wide. We should’ve bowled wicket-to-wicket. As a team, we always like to keep it simple.”
Until then, SRH’s pacers had done the simple things consistently. They hit a good length 77% of the time, the most by any team. And it was that length that fetched its pacers the most wickets — 43 of the total 57. Even that might not have worked against Watson in that mood. But it did get Sunrisers to within a game of the title.
