It wasn’t meant to end this way for Hardik Pandya. A toe-ended single to long-on with his team needing 14 off two balls, bat flung away as he reached the other end.
He had done so much, and seen it come to this. A promising chase petering out. A struggling batter retiring out. And then, when it all came down to him, a series of big swings that never quite came off, against bowlers who never quite nailed their yorkers but never quite missed by too much.
Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) were there or thereabouts with their lines in the last two overs of Mumbai Indians’ (MI) chase of 204. Shardul Thakur aimed his yorkers wide of off stump and Avesh Khan angled them into the stumps, both looking to force Hardik to hit to the longer side of the ground. And both got their lines right most of the time.
But they didn’t always nail their length. Hardik was on strike for eight of the last 12 balls of MI’s chase, and by ESPNcricinfo’s logs, only two landed on the yorker length. Four were full-tosses, and two landed on a full length.
Hardik only managed to hit one of those six missed yorkers to the boundary. Thakur and Avesh didn’t miss by much, but fast bowlers don’t need to miss by much when Hardik is at his best.
In the IPL, Hardik hasn’t been at his best as a batter for quite a while. Of the 35 batters who have scored at least 150 runs in the death overs (17th to 20th) since the 2022 season, Hardik (162.09) has the worst strike rate in this phase.
His death-overs numbers have been particularly poor since his move back to MI last season. He’s faced 48 balls and scored 70 runs off them, at 145.83, while being dismissed six times.
But Friday night certainly wasn’t meant to end like this, with a dissection of Hardik’s batting returns. Truth be told, LSG made things genuinely difficult for him and MI’s other batters on one of the IPL’s best grounds for defending totals. Lucknow has hosted IPL matches since the 2023 season, and in that time, Delhi has been the only ground (minimum ten matches) where teams batting first have enjoyed a better win-loss record. And of the four grounds where teams batting first have won more often than they have lost, Lucknow has been by far the slowest-scoring. LSG were defending only the second 200-plus total ever made on this ground.
And Hardik had been central to keeping them down to 203, despite them scoring 69 for no loss in the powerplay.
When Hardik brought himself on, LSG were 88 for 1 in eight overs. Then he had shown his team how to do it on this pitch and at this ground.
MI play their home games at the Wankhede Stadium, which is known for the pace and true bounce of its red-soil pitches. When they play away games on grounds that have the option of choosing between soil types, their opponents invariably pick black rather than red.
It took until Hardik came on for MI to start bowling in a black-soil way. And he began doing this as soon as he came on. His first over was almost exclusively slower offcutters bowled into the pitch, usually on the shorter side of a good length. The big exception was his fifth ball. This was another offcutter, but it was a lot shorter, and it gripped and bounced to just around head height, turning away from Nicholas Pooran to exaggerate the angle across him from right-arm over. Pooran was in no control of his pull and lobbed a simple catch to short fine leg.
Hardik did for another left-hand batter in his next over, with another slower offcutter from the same angle. Rishabh Pant looked to flick against the angle and against the turn and popped a leading edge to mid-off.
“I remember having a conversation with him last year where I said we need a seamer to bowl after the powerplay, not necessarily at the death, and he’s got the attributes to be able to do that”Mark Boucher on Hardik Pandya’s bowling
Plenty of bowlers bowl offcutters into the pitch. Few – Pat Cummins and Jasprit Bumrah are notable examples – get them to grip and bounce like Hardik does.
On ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show, Mark Boucher, who worked with Hardik as MI’s head coach last season, gave an insight into why his offcutter does so much.
“Hardik loves the new ball,” Boucher said. “He likes to see the ball swinging around. I remember having a conversation with him last year where I said we need a seamer to bowl after the powerplay, not necessarily at the death, and he’s got the attributes to be able to do that.
“He hits good lengths, he’s quite a smart bowler as well, but he’s got a really good change of pace, and he’s got the rolling of the wrist, so he took it upon himself to say, right, that’s the challenge, let me do that.”
As much as Hardik loves the offcutter, though, he isn’t wedded to it. He bowled 15 on Friday night, according to ESPNcricinfo’s data, and 13 in Ahmedabad on March 29, when Gujarat Titans (GT) gave MI a black-soil welcome. In between, though, when he took 1 for 10 in two overs in a home game against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), he only bowled one offcutter, and primarily bowled hard lengths with the seam up.
Was Suryakumar’s wicket the turning point?
“I’ve always enjoyed my bowling,” Hardik said in his post-match interview. “I don’t think I have many options, but I’ll always try to make sure that I read the wicket well and use some smarter options.
“And I think I’ll never try to take wickets. I’ll always be aggressive from my mindset, but it is to always bowl more dot balls and create pressure and let batters make mistakes.”
Against LSG, the smart option also extended to the lines he bowled. He held himself back after two overs in the middle phase, and came back to bowl the 18th and 20th; now he made LSG’s batters play on his terms, forcing the right-hand batters to hit to the off side and the left-hand batters to go leg side – the longer boundary from his end. Nine of his 12 balls went where he wanted them to go, and brought him three more wickets, including those of set batters Aiden Markram and David Miller.
It was Hardik’s first five-wicket haul in T20s. It was the first time a captain had picked up a five-for in the IPL. Hardik could do no wrong.
But MI were already chasing the game, and they would continue to do so until Hardik was front and centre all over again, called upon to clean up another mess. Twice in the same day, on this day, was asking for too much. ESPNCricinfo.com
