In this year's IPL, Prasidh Krishna has picked up 16 wickets in eight matches, and is on course to take home the Purple Cap. What makes him so effective, and how have Gujarat Titans made the most of it?
This is already Prasidh's second-best season ever, and with over half the campaign completed, only RCB's Josh Hazlewood has taken as many. A 30-wicket season may not be far away.
He made his name in the IPL as a wicket-taker, even if he might be expensive at times. Across his first four IPL seasons with Kolkata Knight Riders, Prasidh took 30 in 34 matches, but went at 9.3 runs per over.
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After Rajasthan Royals shelled out INR 10 crore (roughly £879,000) for his services in 2022, he picked up 19 wickets that year, at an economy rate of 8.3 before missing the 2023 and 2024 seasons (which had the Impact Player rule) through injury.
Gujarat Titans picked him up for INR 9.5 crore in this year's auction, possibly with his 2022 campaign still fresh in the memory. His economy rate of 7.3 thus far is significantly better than in any other IPL season.
What is Prasidh Krishna's biggest strength?
First and foremost is his pace – Prasidh has the ability to consistently clock in excess of 140 kph. At 6'2", he is also fairly tall compared to the average Indian pace bowler. Naturally, this gives him the advantage of generating bounce off the wicket, since he releases the ball from higher up, the ball can get up higher.
These two aspects are evident to anyone who watches him. But pace or bounce, or even the combination of the two, is no guarantee of success. His own IPL record is a case in point.
What has changed this season is the way he has been used – Gujarat Titans have managed to put him in the best position to make use of his natural advantages.
Prasidh Krishna's unconventional deception
In the context of bowling, 'deception' tends to be reserved for spinners, or quick bowlers who look to vary the pace to keep batters guessing. Prasidh does not fit into either one of these, but has a more subtle, most likely unconscious, form of deceiving batters.
In general, bowlers vary their lengths by changing the height at which they release the ball. For shorter lengths, quicks are often taught to "put your back into it" – i.e. bend the back to get as low as possible, since they need to bounce the ball a lot closer to themselves.
For fuller lengths, the opposite happens. They tend to release from higher up, since they want the ball to bounce further away from them: here is former India bowling coach Bharat Arun outlining the same while running a yorker practice session.
Batters are able to pick up these changes in release points – not intentionally, but usually thanks to their years of practice facing quick bowling, developing that muscle memory. They are more or less conditioned to expect a shorter delivery if they see a bowler releasing from lower, or bending slightly more, for example.
What can make things difficult for batters is if a bowler is able to vary their lengths with minimal change in the height of release. And this is where Prasidh's ability to deceive comes in.
Comparing his release heights for different lengths with other quicks in the IPL since 2022, one aspect stands out.
Most quicks, particularly those with higher release points, tend to release the ball much lower for short-length deliveries (roughly halfway down the pitch), even if they show little variation for fuller lengths.
Jasprit Bumrah is an excellent example of this. Observe how type of delivery, from full tosses to back of a length, come from almost the same height. But when it comes to bowling the short ball, even he is forced to bend his back more, and deliver from almost 4 cm lower, meaning batters can potentially pick up when that ball is coming (of course, it is ridiculously difficult to read any fuller lengths from him).
Across the full range of lengths, Prasidh's release heights vary by around 7.6 cm – this is roughly average, meaning there isn't likely to be much surprise for batters here. What they are conditioned to pick up should work for them.
But much of this is down to the fact that Prasidh really stretches himself to land the ball on fuller lengths. Over half the variation in his release heights comes from the 4 cm difference between his good length (6-8 m) balls and full tosses (0-2 m).
When it comes to shorter lengths, he is far more difficult to pick up.
The difference in release height between Prasidh's good length and short length deliveries is about 3.4 cm, on average. This is already a relatively small difference. But it is exaggerated by the fact that such variation is only usually seen among bowlers with much lower releases – they cannot generate the same bounce that Prasidh does, and this same amount will likely be more visible in their actions.
| Bowler | Median release height - good length (cm) | Median release height- short length (cm) | Difference (cm) |
| Matheesha Pathirana | 152.1 | 150.3 | 1.8 |
| Nathan Ellis | 182.6 | 180.8 | 1.8 |
| Chris Jordan | 197.1 | 194.2 | 2.9 |
| Vijaykumar Vyshak | 195.2 | 191.9 | 3.2 |
| Sandeep Sharma | 182.3 | 179.0 | 3.3 |
| Prasidh Krishna | 208.2 | 204.8 | 3.4 |
| Dushmantha Chameera | 201.4 | 197.9 | 3.5 |
| Shardul Thakur | 191.1 | 187.5 | 3.6 |
| Akash Madhwal | 182.7 | 179.0 | 3.7 |
| Arshdeep Singh | 206.3 | 202.5 | 3.8 |
Most bowlers who release in and around Prasidh's height – Gerald Coetzee, Alzarri Joseph, Pat Cummins, to name a few – exhibit closer to 5-7 cm of difference in release heights, between good length and short length balls. This is much more in line with what batters are tuned to pick up.
The upshot is this – Prasidh can land the ball anywhere between a 6 and 12 metre length, with much less predictability compared to a bowler of his height. For him, those lengths, on average, correspond to the ball arriving anywhere from just above the stumps, to roughly chest or neck-high, depending on the batter.
This is part of the reason why batters can often look rushed against him (apart from sheer pace). Initial, in-built cues might have told them to expect a delivery in and around their hip, before the delivery came at rib height.
Prasidh's action helps him in this regard – even for short deliveries, the bending of his back appears minimal, and after bowling he springs back up almost instantly, far quicker than other bowlers. He rarely looks like he is actively trying to bowl short.
What helps him vary the length without a significant change in the height of release itself, is his immaculate wrist work. Observe in the above clip how, for the shorter delivery (right), his wrist is cocked back before it 'snaps' downward at delivery. For the slightly fuller one, his wrist is locked behind the ball, pushing it more forward than downward.
How Gujarat Titans have optimised Prasidh Krishna's skills
At Rajasthan in 2022, Prasidh was used as a 'top-and-tail' bowler – mainly taking the new ball before returning at the death. His returns in the Powerplay that season were excellent; 10 wickets at an average of 23.7, and economy rate of 6.6.
But here is the catch. All 10 of those wickets came from deliveries on a good length or shorter – seven from deliveries that were back of a length, or short. He conceded at 5.9 runs per over at these lengths, compared to 7.8 at fuller lengths, for no wickets.
A powerplay bowler in T20s is usually expected to pitch the ball up, and make the most of whatever little early swing is available. Someone like Prasidh, who is more deceptive and more effective when hitting the shorter lengths, might be better utilised through the middle of the innings.
That is exactly what Gujarat have done this season.
Prasidh Krishna – Distribution of overs
| Overs | IPL 2022 (RR) | IPL 2025 (GT) |
| 1-6 | 54.1% | 19.4% |
| 7-11 | 6.0% | 29.0% |
| 12-16 | 10.5% | 29.0% |
| 17-20 | 29.3% | 22.6% |
Prasidh is now bowling almost 60 per cent of his overs in the middle period. In 2022, he bowled the 2nd over of the innings in all 17 matches he played. After eight games this year, he is yet to bowl in the first half of the Powerplay. It has been a complete U-turn from his role at RR.
This change gives GT a two-fold advantage. Prasidh is now best-placed to make use of his strengths, and the new ball can instead be taken by someone more likely to extract the most out of that phase of the innings – Arshad Khan, Mohammed Siraj, Ishant Sharma and Kagiso Rabada have all taken up this role. Of course, the Impact Player giving GT an extra bowler helps them implement this more smoothly than without it.
Even when GT use him at the death, he seems encouraged to stick to bowling the shorter lengths, and to attempt fuller deliveries or yorkers mainly as a surprise delivery.
Prasidh Krishna – Distribution of lengths in overs 17-20
| Length | IPL 2022 (RR) | IPL 2025 (GT) |
| Full toss | 16.5% | 8.6% |
| Yorker | 22.7% | 1.2% |
| Full/Slot | 22.7% | 14.8% |
| Good | 16.5% | 14.8% |
| Back of length | 9.8% | 27.2% |
| Short | 11.9% | 33.3% |
For what it is worth, Prasidh remains expensive in this phase (11.3 RPO in 2022, vs 11.7 RPO in 2025). But he is also taking a wicket every seven balls in the slog overs, compared to every 19.5 balls in 2022 – a trade-off, it seems, GT are content with since he bowls just one of the last four overs for them on average.
It is a move that GT perhaps deserve credit for, since it might have been tempting to hand him the new ball off the back of his numbers in 2022. But as the franchise has shown in other ways this season, their ability to extract the best from their players has been second to none. This is another example of identifying a player's strengths and giving them the best chance to succeed, both personally and for the team.
By the end of the campaign, it could bear fruit in spectacular fashion.
Footage credit: JioHotstar
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