Bishnoi v Chahal & The Hundred Kicks Off
Bishnoi v Chahal & The Hundred Kicks Off
Jack Hope writes some brief notes on Chahal v Bishnoi and The Hundred
Inspired by a conversation on our Patreon exclusive Discord (you can sign up here! - just £4 a month) I decided write a quick article on the debate between Bishnoi and Chahal. Also, The Hundred is start this evening, and I thought I’d have a bit of a look at Southern Brave’s interesting approach to backloading certain bowlers.
Bishnoi v Chahal
India’s T20 side is starting to look more settled as we head towards the next T20 World Cup. One area where there may be potential dissent, however, is the Chahal/Bishnoi debate. On the face of it there isn’t much of a contest, Chahal is a more experienced bowler, who has had a better career and is in better form. Within the context of the India team though, there is still a case that they should pick Bishnoi. This is in part because Jadeja will almost certainly play as the second spinner.
Compare the three below (Jadeja, Chahal, Bishnoi - in order) from the start of 2019 in the IPL, and it should be relatively clear what the potential issue with playing Chahal with Jadeja is:
Bishnoi is a significantly better bowler to left handers, and could potentially cover for Jadeja’s weakness in this area. He is able to do this in part because he bowls from beyond the perpendicular, from 11 o’clock instead of the traditional 1 o’clock for leg spinners. This helps him to effectively bowl as an off spinner when he wants to, as it is easier for to get the back of his hand through for googlies. Data below, from Cricket With Ash, shows how successful this can be, and how he takes the approach to an extreme v lefties - bowling almost 80% googlies to them
For what it is worth, Chahal is tracking in the right direction v lefties too, and is becoming a better bowler in those scenarios. That coupled with him probably, at this precise point in time, being better than Bishnoi would make me hedge in his favour (if I had a call!), but there are certainly some opposition line-ups where India would probably be right to go with Bishnoi.
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The Hundred Kicks Off
In a couple of hours time the second iteration of The Hundred kicks off. I enjoyed the tournament last year, and think that it is mainly a positive thing for English cricket. My opinion is that a lot of the anger directed towards it stems from the inflexibility of the existing domestic game. The County Championship, for example, a competition I like and regularly attend takes place almost exclusively on working days, and is timed to coincide almost exactly with working day. Why?
Tonight’s match features last year’s Champions, Southern Brave, against the underwhelming (and Bairstowless) Welsh Fire. I expect Southern Brave to come out on top. Last year they were one of the more tactically interesting teams in the tournament, particularly in the way they backloaded the bowling of Tymal Mills and Chris Jordan. The chart below, showing which half of the innings their 5 main bowlers bowled shows this clearly.
The pair ended up combining for over 60% of the overs Southern Brave bowled in the second half of innings last year. It will be interesting to see whether teams try to adapt to that, or look for potential ways to exploit this game plan.