IPL 2022: The resurgence of Kagiso Rabada as an elite T20 bowler – Firstcricket News, Firstpost
Mumbai has witnessed multiple Rahul Tewatia specials in the ongoing IPL 2022 and despite Gujarat Titans being 108/4 after 16 overs on Tuesday night, there was still this belief that he would bail them out and see his team off to a good total.
It wasn’t to be as Kagiso Rabada struck twice in two balls to send Tewatia and Rashid Khan packing, derailing the Gujarat innings with a four-wicket haul, his second in the season after he picked up 4/38 in just the previous outing against Lucknow Super Giants. It was this death bowling masterclass from the South African that helped Punjab pull off an unexpected win against table-toppers Gujarat Titans.
Once you get labelled as a player for the death overs, there’s no coming back from it. Look at MS Dhoni. Or David Miller. Or Jasprit Bumrah. Or Tewatia himself. The knack of holding your nerve under pressure and executing your plan to perfection isn’t something everyone gets right. So when someone does, there’s the understandable expectation that he would go on to do so again. And again. And again.
Kagiso Rabada’s four wickets inspired Punjab Kings to win over Gujarat Titans. Image: Sportzpics for IPL
It’s what happened with Rabada. A sinewy, ultra-fast overseas bowler who can deliver in the death overs; Rabada was a magnet for IPL franchises with immediate attraction for the South African in the auction in 2017. And the results showed. In his first full season in the IPL, in 2019, Rabada took 25 wickets at an economy rate of 7.82. 17 of those came in the last four overs.
Notably, he pulled off the incredible feat of keeping Andre Russell quiet in the Super Over, hitting the boot with pinpoint accurate yorkers that were pre-planned. “Today I felt like bowling the yorker,” Rabada would later nonchalantly put in at the post-match press conference, as though the yorker is something bowlers can execute perfectly if they just “felt” like it. For Rabada, though, it was.
In 2020 and 2021, his death bowling results were mixed. He was among the wickets still, taking 22 of those in the final four overs, the most by any bowler, but at an economy rate of 9.48 which wasn’t quite in the league of a Jasprit Bumrah or a Jofra Archer, the flock of elite T20 death overs bowlers Rabada was expected to be a part of when he first emerged.
When a raw Rabada emerged from the 2014 under-19 World Cup, he was exciting, fast, aggressive and had a chutzpah about him. It grew when his international career took flight with a hat-trick and a six-wicket haul on his ODI debut. Later in 2015, Rabada did the unthinkable: he stopped MS Dhoni in the death overs.
A one-on-one battle with Dhoni is among the most intimidating things for a bowler and with the crowd right behind the Jharkhand hero in this ODI in Kanpur, defending 11 in the last over seemed a difficult proposition. But Rabada is cut out of the same cloth as Dhoni. He was nerveless. Contrary to what others had tried, Rabada went short against Dhoni and had him caught out to script a memorable win for South Africa.
IPL honours followed in 2017 and soon he was a much-sought-after death bowler in this format even as he thrived in the red ball game for the Proteas. 2019 made Rabada a feared bowler in the IPL circuit, but that reputation took a hit in the following couple of years when his death overs economy rate shot up with length balls and lack of control.
His reputation as a death bowler and the sluggish tracks in UAE did not help. Rabada kept bowling in the death and kept missing his mark. The confidence was down and the returns dwindled everywhere. In T20Is for South Africa, his death overs economy rate has shot up to above 10 since 2020. The wickets dried up too. In the IPL, the wickets were still coming, but a lot of those were “junk wickets”, those of tail-enders or lower-order batters when the game had lost its purpose. If none of these, it was a big hitter miscuing a slot ball after slapping him for boundaries.
Things turned up for the better at the T20 World Cup in 2021, but in a different way. Rabada went at over 10 runs per over in the death overs, but he only bowled four overs in that phase with Temba Bavuma seeing him as more of a powerplay option. The returns flooded in. Rabada bowled 11 of his 19 overs in the tournament inside the first six overs. The wickets didn’t come in plenty — he took just four wickets in the phase — but he was difficult to put away with his economy rate at 6.73.
It was a massive boost for Rabada, whose powerplay numbers had taken a toll at Delhi Capitals. Rabada had bowled 40 of his 121 overs between 2020 and 2021 in the IPL in the powerplay, but took just six wickets, a strike rate of one wicket every 40 balls, the second-worst among the 19 bowlers to bowl 150-plus balls in that phase.
Bavuma’s usage of Rabada inspired Punjab Kings, who had valued his services at INR 9.25 crores, to see the pacer as a powerplay-first bowler who could set the tone for the bowling innings. The results spiked instantly. Rabada delivered wickets and the confidence was reflected in the other phases too. Rabada was a tad more expensive in the first six, but he was taking wickets like he used to.
This season, he has seven wickets in the first six overs, the same as he has in the final four, at an economy rate of 8.05. The death overs results have become elite too with his economy rate below 8.5 runs per over and the wickets keep coming. After a lull, Rabada is returning to his best, vying to get into the bracket of elite T20 quicks who are feared with the new ball and in the death. At the rate he’s going in this tournament, he might already be there by the end of the season.
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