da 888casino： The KKR seamers pitched the ball “a touch fuller, which maybe allows for just a little bit of extra swing, which was their [SRH’s] undoing,” says Boucher
da betsson： ESPNcricinfo staff04-Apr-20252:53
Boucher: Arora’s length and swing caused trouble
IPL 2025 started with expectations of the 300 mark being breached in the competition, and after the second game of the season, where Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) scored 286 against Rajasthan Royals (RR), the expectations didn’t seem misplaced either. Five matches in, we at ESPNcricinfo looked at the trends, which suggested IPL 2025 would break all big-scoring records. But after the fifth game, 200 has been crossed touched once, and we’re 15 games in.One-dimensional, wham-bam batting plans? Pitches? What is it?Well, maybe the bowlers have had something to do with it.Speaking on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show after Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) beat SRH by 80 runs at Eden Gardens – they were the team to touch 200, by the way – Mark Boucher, the former South Africa wicketkeeper-batter and Mumbai Indians (MI) head coach, said, “The one thing I did pick up is they [the KKR bowlers] bowled a touch fuller. I think the first three or four [SRH] wickets went out off the front foot: nick-offs, balls going up in the air. So that’s one thing they did learn: bowl a touch fuller. Which maybe allows for just a little bit of extra swing, which was their undoing.”Related
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Travis Head fell first, to Vaibhav Arora, to a ball pitched up and swinging away. Harshit Rana got Abhishek Sharma next with a slower one. Arora then got Ishan Kishan with a full delivery again, though Kishan smashed it, only for Ajinkya Rahane to take a screamer at cover. Fourth out was Nitish Kumar Reddy, flicking an Andre Russell length ball to Sunil Narine in the on-side inflield. So, as Boucher said, the first four batters to fall were done in by full or length balls.But what’s changed?”I think a lot of bowlers got it in their minds that they [have to be] defensive, they hit that back-of-a-length nice and hard. On certain pitches, that works. On certain wickets that are fairly flat, you’ve got to ball the opportunity to swing,” Boucher said. “It’s not going to swing for the entire day, it’s going to swing for the first couple of overs. We saw [Mohammed] Siraj bowl in the powerplay [for Gujarat Titans (GT) against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)], he also got a lot of balls right up there and he got good results for it as well [3 for 19].Vaibhav Arora came in as an Impact sub and picked three wickets•BCCI
“If the ball is swinging – there’s only one way to find out if the ball is swinging, that’s to get a couple up there, that’s the braveness that we’re talking about. Let the ball shape. If it’s there for three of four overs, try to get one or two up, and that’s exactly what happened.”Boucher and his co-panellist Sanjay Bangar also gave away a little secret from their time as head coaches of IPL teams – Bangar has been head coach at Punjab Kings (PBKS) apart from holding coaching positions at a few other franchises.”The top orders, as far as batting is concerned, are a little bit headless at the moment, [going by] the kind of approach that is being seen. Whereas the bowlers [have been] rigorous, as usual,” Bangar said. “We have been through those bowling meetings; those seem to last longer. Maybe an hour, hour-and-a-half. Because we need to plan against each and every batter.1:10
Do SRH need to rethink their batting approach?
“But batting meetings, if at all there are any, are either during practice sessions or maybe a five- or ten-minuter. So clearly, I think, bowlers [are] putting more thought and getting more skilful as well.”Boucher wanted to wait for a few more matches – especially those featuring SRH, since, well, they are the ones tipped to be the 300 men – before passing judgment, but said, “The bowlers have had to get to that point where they start questioning themselves about certain things. Sanjay mentioned the bowlers’ meetings, and he’s 100% right. You spend hours with bowlers and each individual goes through each batter. So there’s a lot of education about where to bowl and all that type of stuff. I think bowlers have got better.”But the batters too… the game is set up for batting, let’s be brutally honest. So it’s still early doors to talk about whether bowlers have caught up.”What has happened for certain is that SRH have gone from 286 for 6 to 190 for 9 to 163 to 120, the last one chasing, the others batting first. The first one is the only one they have won. And, yes, 300 looks quite far away at this stage.
