From seven defeats in eight games to five wins in five, RCB have turned their IPL 2024 campaign around emphatically. A large part of it has been built on their resurgence against spin led by Rajat Patidar, writes Naman Agarwal.
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“Is that fact? Are we out of the playoffs run one hundred percent?” Reece Topley tried to confirm with a reporter when asked about RCB’s road ahead following their one-run defeat against KKR at the Eden Gardens, their seventh of the season in eight games. While the answer to that question was “no”, he naturally seemed resigned to fate when explaining how RCB would look at the remaining games: “We could finish on seven wins and look back in years to come and be like ‘ah, that was a respectable campaign.’”
Giving what seemed like a token answer to give for someone at his position at that point of time, little would Topley have imagined that RCB would indeed go into their last league game with the possibility of finishing on seven wins still intact.
Since their defeat at the Eden Gardens, RCB have won five games on the bounce, steamrolling their way through oppositions as if they were insignificant pebbles in the way of a massive boulder gathering momentum on its way down a hill, except that the direction of RCB’s motion has only been uphill in the last few weeks.
Among the several factors that have driven the change in fortunes for them include the return to form of Mohammed Siraj; the emergence of Swapnil Singh as a new-ball wicket-taking threat; and an out-of-form Glenn Maxwell volunteering to sit out, allowing RCB to field a more balanced combination.
The one factor that has had the biggest impact, however, has been the shift in their overall approach while batting against spin.
In their first six games of the season, RCB struck at 128.17 against spinners, that is, 7.69 runs per over. It was the lowest run rate any team had against spin till April 11, RCB’s sixth match day, against Mumbai Indians. Their average, on the other hand, was the second-highest among all teams (46.14), indicating how risk-averse they were against the slower bowlers.
Virat Kohli was the highest scorer against spin up until that point in the league, but his 128 runs had come at a rate of 130.61. No RCB batter had faced even 25 balls at a 150-plus strike rate against spin till then.
Maxwell and Rajat Patidar were supposed to be the two batters to take down spin through the middle overs. Neither started the season on a good enough note. Patidar made 50 runs in his first four knocks, striking at under 110. More than the numbers, he looked out of sorts at the crease. Maxwell fared worse. His first six games yielded five scores under five including three ducks. That perhaps played into the conservativeness of the other batters against spin.
While Maxwell decided to bench himself, given the dire straits RCB were in, Patidar fought it out in the middle. Against Mumbai he scored his first fifty of the season, a 25-ball effort that helped rescue RCB from an early collapse to set a competitive total. Neither did RCB win that game nor did Patidar get to display his incredible range against spin as faced only six deliveries from Shreyas Gopal, the lone MI spinner on the park that night. That knock did, however, go on to have a ripple effect that brought RCB to the brink of playoff qualification.
It not only brought Patidar back to form but also gave the rest of the batting order enough confidence to go harder, especially against spin. Kohli's strike rate against spin increased from 130 to 147, Faf du Plessis' from 133 to 178, and Cameron Green's from 113 to 156; Will Jacks arrived to the party as well, striking at 153 against spin since that game.
Overall, RCB jumped from bottom to second-placed in the run rate charts against spin from their seventh game onwards, behind only Sunrisers Hyderabad. And the jump in run rate (from 7.69 to 10.66) was not accompanied by a drop in average, as is normally the case. Instead, their average has increased as well, from 46 to 58 – the highest among all teams in this period of the league.
Basically, ever since Patidar returned to form, RCB as a batting unit have been a reflection of his belligerence against spin. With seven matches to go in the league stage of IPL 2024, no other batter has struck at a better rate against spin than Patidar, whose 182 runs have come at an average of 91 and a strike rate of 224. His strength lies in picking length early and going straight, be it off the front foot or the back. Rarely has Patidar stepped out of his crease or tried anything funky against spinners. And yet, 20 of his 25 boundaries against spin so far have been sixes. Only Abhishek Sharma has hit as many sixes against spin this season till Match 63.
RCB's all out attack against spin has forced opposition teams to try different things. Since their game at the Wankhede, RCB have – perhaps not surprisingly – faced the most overs of spin among all teams. Their ultra-aggressive approach has tempted teams to go heavy on spin in search of wickets, which haven't arrived. They've lost a wicket only every 32.8 balls against spin in their last seven games, behind only KKR (33.5). It has fed into RCB's strength and they have made merry.
With only one match to go and six wins in their bag, RCB can still make it to the playoffs if a few other results go their way. With the kind of momentum they currently have, RCB and their fans can't be blamed if they believe that the universe will conspire to get them in. Irrespective of whether they do get in or not, though, this has already been a run to be proud of for the men in red, one that they can look back in years to come and be like 'ah that was a respectable campaign'.
