Chennai Super Kings vs Kolkata Knight Riders. The fixtures involving these two teams usually bring the focus on their spin prowess. An array of finger spinners pitted against two mystery spinners. Eden Gardens or Chepauk, the narrative was largely on the tweakers. As the two prepare to face-off for the first time this season, placed ninth and tenth in the points table, the focus is once again on the spinners. Or rather their dwindling influence given that at both venues, Chennai and Kolkata, the old spin-friendly surfaces have given way to flatter decks neutralising their spinners to a great extent.
In a season where scoring rates have already exceeded the previous years, two numbers stand out for Chennai and Kolkata. Beyond Mumbai Indians, whose attack has conceded 11.13 runs per over in the four matches they have played, Chennai and Kolkata haven’t been far off. Chennai have conceded 10.81 runs per over to Kolkata’s 10.68 and much of it is down to how their spinners, who have been their calling cards in the past, have performed.
For Chennai, Noor Ahmad was supposed to be their go-to-man in the middle-overs, but the Afghan has been suffering a dip in form. The wicket of Ashutosh Sharma he took on Saturday was his first in any competitive cricket since January. And then for KKR, there is Varun Chakaravarthy, whose form has shown no signs of recovery since the T20 World Cup to the extent that his absence in their last two matches, didn’t feel like a miss.
The good news for KKR is in their last match, Sunil Narine conjured the magic of old and appeared to be finding his old mojo back.
On the eve of their match on Monday, Noor and Varun were a study in contrast. When CSK acquired Noor using RTM card for Rs 10 crore from Gujarat Titans, Stephen Fleming’s hands that signalled 10 had become meme material. A left-arm wrist spinner, who was scouted by GT’s Ashish Kapoor, he was in line to pair up with his idol Rashid Khan. But, Chennai having seen Varun slip out of their hands to Kolkata years back, have been nurturing Noor as their problem solver for middle-overs, where he has been conceding at an incredible 7.18 runs per over.
Even in the IPL, with the Impact Player sub in play, those numbers just go up to 8.34. But this season, Noor has been going at 11.30, with the line he operates being the concern. One who prefers to bowl from over the wicket to right-handed batsmen, Noor’s strength lies in his ability to attack the line of stumps and using the variations which include a googly that goes the other way.
The problem, though is, it just hasn’t been in the line alone. Like modern-day wrist spinners, Noor is generous when it comes to using the googly, which has become more of his stock delivery. It is the trap that Ravi Bishnoi fell into before rediscovering his craft. On Saturday when he finally got the wicket, Sanju Samson had to tell him to slow down his pace.
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“I think his lines are important, if he gets the ball in stump line, as much as possible, varies his pace, hits the bails a lot, he is in his elements,” CSK’s bowling consultant Eric Simons said of Noor. “He’s not far away, he’s bowling beautifully in nets and he’s bowling beautifully in practise, so it’s just translating that into the middle. But again, when guys are coming at you as hard as they do now, there’s no respect for who you are as a bowler anymore, if the ball’s in your area, they just swing, you just got to back yourself,” Simons added.
And then there is Varun. Having missed the last two games with a finger injury, he has been training and practicing since his arrival in his hometown. On Monday, away from all the attention, he went to the MAC B Grounds, where he bowled for a while without exposing him to the frontline batsmen. The word around him is that he is good to go for this game, but the question is whether KKR would want to risk him when he isn’t in the best of form. Joint highest wicket-taker in the T20 World Cup, he has been wicketless in the two matches, going for 48 in one and 31 in the other in just two overs.
With batsmen moving deep back in the crease and hitting him straight off the good length (5-6m) that he has been operating, it is understood that Varun has been working on adjusting his length. The problem is if he goes a bit fuller, it feeds into the batsmen’s arc, where irrespective of whether he generates turn or not, batsmen have found it easy to hit him straight. And in the case of going shorter, it again has allowed batsmen to hit him over mid-wicket. It is understood that Varun has been putting the hours to rectify the right lengths he has to hit and make it a muscle memory. The question though is how long will that take and whether KKR, will back him to rediscover form in the middle.
