The Dynamic Enchanters and The Situational Technicians – IPL 12

Viewers, first of all, sorry for the delay in posting this content, as this should have been done before the World Cup started, but couldn’t, due to heavy workload in its creation. Now, it’s high time that I end the chapter of IPL with my last topic. As all of you would be aware by now that my focus is inclined towards youngsters in most of my blogs, which would have made you wonder for the past 60 days, as to why have he not published anything specific related to it. Here, comes your much-awaited release.

Moving onto this post, the idea for this subject arouse in my head a long time before, but I was waiting for the right moment to publish it and today, I am here finally, to share my thoughts and familiarize some of the exciting new faces, who fought tooth and nail, this season, in order to get an opportunity at the national level, namely, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Chahar, Nitish Rana and Rahul Tripathi. These 4 players have been categorized into two groups respectively i.e. The Dynamic Enchanters and The Situational Technicians. Can anyone make out, why has this been done???……No ideas!!!!, Okay then, let’s find out the reason.

The Dynamic Enchanters

Let’s have a glimpse of the two promising prospects at the Enchanters. Both, Shreyas and Chahar were truly electrifying, this season. The former, though he was a bit expensive, was very shrewd, as he spun a thick web, capturing some of the prime preys like AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli. While, the latter was very elegant, bowling constant tidy discomforting lengths to the batters. The term “Dynamic Enchanters” was coined based on the factors of quick adaptation to varied conditions and the ability of producing consistent magical spells respectively. These qualities made me consider them in this group, as they had a cut above the others.

Enchanters’ Performance – The Secret Sauce of Success

Shreyas Gopal

This all-rounder from Karnataka was born on 4th of September, 1993. He started his career as a right hand middle order batsman who could bowl some skilful leg-spin, eventually became a trump card in the spin department. He has a decent record in the domestic and First Class (overall of 2431 runs, 184 wickets with best scores of 150 not out and 5/17) circuit, in both domains.

His exciting play for the Bengaluru Blasters made them reach the final of 2019 edition of the Karnataka Premier League. This might probably be one of the reasons that earned him a berth in the Pink Army (RR). Looking at his economy rate with the ball, very few times he has gone wicket-less, as he uses the technique of buying wickets rather than taking it, just like Ravichandran Ashwin. All depends on his striking of line and length, if so, he then generates a lot of variations, giving a lot of air, which includes leg spin, wrong-un (lethal delivery), top spinners, sliders and many more. These variations troubles even a well-settled and a technically sound batsman. He also provides some vital runs lower down the order for Royals with the bat. This season of IPL proved to be very memorable for Shreyas with the ball, as he claimed an overall of 20 wickets with an average economy of 7.43, conceding 347 runs in the 48 overs he bowled, which included a hat-trick against the RCB at game 49 (3 scalps – Virat, AB and Stoinis).

Rahul Chahar

Moving onto the 2nd enchanter, Rahul Chahar, this 19 year old Rajasthani right hand legbreak bowler is an amazing talent, found and utilized well by the Mumbai Indians squad. He normally does not experiment too many variations and just keeps it simple like Anil Kumble with his leg spin and occasional googlies. Despite fewer varieties, it is hard to execute him because of the consistent good lengths that he maintains throughout his spell. Unlike his brother Deepak, he is not well versed in batting as he holds the position of a tail-ender (right handed) across all formats. His achievement at the First Class level is appreciable comprising a decent record on the whole of 57 wickets in 25 innings with the best bowling figures of 5 for 59 in an innings and 9 for 148 in a match.

Though he did not feature in the first 3 games of IPL12, he subsequently became the mainstay in the MI squad. Rahul made sure that he doesn’t become lackadaisical at any instant and stuck to the plans well, as per the doctors’ (Rohit Sharma) order. He was economical against most of the teams, except KKR, as he could not escape from the power of Dre-Russ. His brilliance was evinced during the Qualifiers and Finals as he stood with an economy of 3.50 in both games, nabbing important wickets. After bowling a total of 47 overs, picking up 13 wickets, the average economy during this season was 6.83 (in the 13 matches played), conceding 308 runs. Had he managed to restrict the havoc caused by the Knight Riders, his average would have been considerably less by around 6 runs/over. His inclusion in any team will definitely reap benefits.

Since he restricts the free flow of runs, taking wickets sometimes, I feel he scores slightly over Gopal, irrespective of their importance and competitiveness in any side.

The Situational Technicians

Do you know that all the teams will have a ‘Floater’ in their side? By the way, who is a Floater? For those who are not aware, the batting department of a playing 11 will generally have a fixed number of contestants, say 4-5 members, followed by the wicket-keepers, all-rounders and bowlers; as allocated by the captains and the team management. Among these 5 specialist batters, most of them can fit themselves only in a particular slot and are not flexible, e.g. in India, Shikhar Dhawan is most suited as an opening batsman with Virat Kohli in the No.1 slot, they cannot easily mould themselves in any other slot, as they are used in handling the new ball and pacers with great efficiency. Similarly, those coming down the order, can’t shine if they are placed at the top.

Only few of them like Ambati Rayudu, Rohit Sharma, K L Rahul and Usman Khawaja have the ability to handle any type of pressure situations, and quickly get over from it. These players are known as ‘Floaters’ (the skill of accommodating to a positional switch when needed). For being recognized as a floater, one should be strong in his basic techniques. Such a person, who imbibes both these inter-related qualities, will be referred to as a “Situational Technician“. Nitish and Tripathi satisfy these criteria; hence, they fall under this category.

Performance Meter of the Technicians’

Biography

Nitish Rana was born at Delhi on December 27, 1993. He plays a key role on crisis situations, in stabilizing the innings, thereby very apt for the No.4 slot (left-handed). Also, he can contribute under any given position as an opener (or) 1, 3, 4 down in the order. In case of a bowling change, he can part-time some gentle right arm offie’s, which could prove dangerous at times. On the other hand, Rahul Tripathi, aged 28, belongs to the native of captain cool, MS Dhoni (Ranchi). He is a good right handed top order batsman, valuable as a floater in the 4th, 5th, 6th slot, now-a-days. He represents Maharashtra in the Ranji Trophy while Nitish represents Delhi. Apart from their current IPL teams, Nitish and Rahul were a part of the 2015 Champions Mumbai Indians and the Rising Pune Supergiants (Runner-Ups, 2018) respectively.

Strong Zone

Left handers are usually a treat to watch as they are very stylish. Likewise, the stroke-play of Nitish looks very elegant especially in his strong zone i.e. on the leg side. You can witness this when he tries to slog sweep any spinner towards long-on for a towering six (his preferred shot). Parallely, Tripathi is a good ‘hooker‘ of the cricket ball, as he swiftly responds to a head directed bouncer, reminiscing Sunil Gavaskar at his old times. Tripathi plays a classic straight drive, as the ball races away to the boundary like a tracer bullet.

First-Class Records

Nitish Rana has scored a total of 1765 runs at an average of 41.04, picking up 10 wickets (Best Match Figures – 4/34) in the 30 First Class matches, he played. His strike rate is 53.87 and the highest score in this format is 174. Both have reasonable domestic figures (List A and T20’s). Meanwhile, Rahul Tripathi has 39 First Class games till now, scoring 2199 runs at an average of 35.46, strike rate of 53.91, with 132 being his highest score. He rarely bowls some right arm medium pacers, having a wickets tally of 11 with the best match figures of 2 for 10 runs in this format.

IPL 2019 stats

Both of them are excellent partnership builders, but, couldn’t prove worthy by converting their starts. As a result, did not have a remarkable season this year, as per the above score tally. Nitish’s performance was just like a flash in the pan i.e., if he clicked, no matter any team, he simply hammers everyone; else, gets out early. He reminds me, the play of Shaun Marsh, Damien Martyn and MS Dhoni, in consuming a considerable time to settle, before he explodes. Whereas, Tripathi just resembles Dravid in nudging the 1’s and 2’s. In order to summarize, I have statistically determined their performance based on a shortlist of their scores above 30 and briefed it below, as they weren’t batting regularly in this tournament.

Going on to the statistical head-to-head comparison, Rana surpasses over Tripathi in every aspect, despite being chance-less sometimes, featuring in every game. But, it was very unfortunate for the latter as he got dropped after playing 8 games. Based on the tournament progress, the pyramid chart displays a gradual decline in Rahul’s scoring rate compared to a see-sawing Rana’s performance. Leaving apart their individual performances, I firmly believe that both of them will definitely be in contention for the No.4 spot in the Indian squad, with a persistent and prolonged hard-work.

All the candidates are capable enough, among which I elucidated my top 4. My best wishes to the above players, to cement their positions in the national sides. Similarly, you can also like and comment about your favourite cricketers who inspired you the most in this season. Most importantly, don’t forget to share this post among your friends. For the next blog, let’s make it an interactive session, I leave the choice of topic to everyone. You can suggest the topic on which you want me to post a blog. Until then, Bye – Bye!!!!!!!!