IPL 2022: Is Bhuvneshwar Kumar still one of best death bowlers? How good is Rahul Tripathi and other burning questions from MI vs SRH game – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Sunrisers Hyderabad moved up to 12 points with a close win over Mumbai Indians to technically keep their chances alive in IPL 2022.

Chasing 194 for a win, Mumbai Indians’ opening pair of Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan took off brilliantly with a 95-run stand but MI couldn’t sustain that momentum as Umran Malik took three middle-over wickets before it needed a late burst from Tim David for them to get close. Here we raise a few burning questions from the match.

Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Bhuvneshwar Kumar celebrates with captain Kane Williamson after taking the wicket of Sanjay Yadav in Mumbai on Tuesday night. Sportzpics

How good is Tripathi against pace and spin?

Rahul Tripathi smashed a 44-ball 76 from No.3, including a sequence of 6, 4, 4 against Jasprit Bumrah in the fifth over of the SRH innings. Tripathi has been impressive this season with his intent, as always, but has also shown he can convert it into bigger knocks like last night. This season, he averages 39.3 with the bat and strikes at 161.7 with the ball. No one in the season has scored more runs than him (393 runs) at a better strike-rate.

Tripathi has maintained his remarkable strike-rate against both pace and spin in the last couple of seasons. He is among the four batters (Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Prithvi Shaw being the rest) who have played 100 balls against both pace and spin in this time duration and have a strike-rate of more than 140 against both.

The SRH middle-order batter has pushed his case for a national call-up with an excellent season with the bat.

Why Williamson’s flexible role is something SRH should have experimented with earlier

Sunrisers Hyderabad moved away from opening with Kane Williamson last night and reaped immediate rewards. 57 runs came in the powerplay overs as Tripathi and Priyam Garg made use of the early restrictions. In 10 overs, SRH had raced to 97 for the loss of just two wickets.

This season, before the game against MI, Sunrisers had the third-best average inside the first 10 overs but at third-worst strike-rate. The lack of intent was telling and they rectified it on Wednesday night with the Tripathi-Garg stand being particularly impressive. The duo put on 78 runs in 43 balls to up the ante early on and set a platform for the likes of Nicholas Pooran to capitalise on.

It took Sunrisers Hyderabad 12 games in the season to move away from Williamson at the top despite the captain’s mediocre results through the season. Had they been more flexible with it like on Tuesday, SRH would have arguably been in a better position to qualify.

How Tim David is warming up to take over as MI’s Pollard replacement

With long levers and unmatched aggression, Tim David has taken franchise T20 cricket by storm, and we might just have our next big finisher in the IPL already. Mumbai Indians invested in David with the intention of him eventually taking up the Kieron Pollard role in the middle-order and so far he’s done justice to it despite being dropped early in the season.

Since his return, David has smashed 20* (9), 44* (21), 13 (9), 16* (7) and 46 (18) – remarkably consistent results in a difficult role. Since 2021, across all T20s, David has struck at a rate of 150 or more in 14 of the 19 innings he has batted 15 or more balls, a telling sign of his ability to impact matches despite not needing to play far too many balls.

In the IPL this season, David’s strike-rate stands at 202.70; the best by anyone to face 50 or more balls. With Mumbai Indians focusing on building the next generation of talent this year, David has stepped up and stamped his place down in that middle-order.

Why Umran Malik has shown he is more than ready to step up for bigger honours

Umran Malik’s impressive returns in the middle overs continued as he snared three wickets in two high-pace, high-impact overs. Mumbai Indians, which had gotten off to a great start thanks to Rohit and Kishan, stumbled to 127/4 as Malik picked up three wickets in quick time to put Sunrisers Hyderabad on top.

Time and again this season, Malik has shown that he can be an enforcer in the middle overs to tackle the spin hitters. It is reflected in his numbers too. 18 of his 21 wickets have come in the middle overs with him bowling 89 per cent of his overs in this phase.

Using his high pace with extra protection in the deep (he has only bowled two powerplay overs and has gone for 21 runs apiece in each of those two overs), Malik has tested batters designated to counter spin in the middle overs with his sheet pace and bounce.

With the Indian team lacking an out and out pacer who can be an enforcer through the middle overs, Umran Malik’s returns are too promising to not place trust upon, especially with a T20 World Cup looming in Australia.

Is Bhuvneshwar Kumar still one of the best death bowlers around?

With Mumbai Indians needing 19 runs in two overs, Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled a sensational penultimate over, conceding zero runs and taking the wicket of debutant Sanjay Yadav. Granted four of those deliveries were against Jasprit Bumrah but Bhuvneshwar has overall been consistently impressive in the death overs again this season.

Bhuvneshwar has the fifth-best economy rate in the death overs this year (8.61) and has remarkably taken nine wickets in the last four overs — the joint-second-best by any bowler. No one has gone past his tally of dot balls in the death too at 43 dots.

Unsurprisingly, he has been tasked with bowling the tricky penultimate over quite a few times this season. In seven such overs, he has five wickets and an economy rate of just 7.86, the second-best after Kagiso Rabada among bowlers to bowl the penultimate over thrice this year.

After a slightly bumpy road in recent years, Bhuvneshwar has stepped up this season to prove he is still among one of the best death bowlers in the country.

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