Young Indians have outshone overseas stars

PRITHVI SHAW HAS HAD AN INCREDIBLE START TO HIS IPL CAREER. WHAT IS IMPRESSIVE ABOUT HIM IS HIS ABILITY TO SCORE RUNS OFF EVERY BALL

It has not been a great IPL for foreign players, especially those who have come with a reputation of being big hitters from Big Bash and other leagues.

Take the example of D’Arcy Short. He has had a reality check with the ‘Indianness’ of the IPL.

He opens the innings for Rajasthan Royals, but has faced more deliveries of spin than seam, and that has neutralised his big-hitting ability. Same is the case with a few others.

Their strike-rate against spin when compared to their career strike-rates or against seam is poor. The thing is, with seam you can hit out in the vicinity of the ball and get away.

The pace, even the slower ball at 120 kmph, often helps the ball fly off the edge for runs.

A good, fast-paced short ball can be pulled at blindly and there is a good chance you will get a top edge that will fly over the keeper for a four or even a six.

You don’t have this advantage against spin. You need to have a fair idea of which way the ball will turn, because there is no speed in the deliveries and top edges will balloon to short thirdman or short fine-leg for easy catches if you miscue a slog.

To make matters worse for poor players of spin, the exceptional T20 spinners don’t turn the ball much but disguise their variations beautifully and that becomes hard for someone who is not good at picking deceptive deliveries.

This IPL season is a wake-up call for all those big hitters from overseas. If they want to be IPL stars and enjoy the riches that come with it, they need to get better against spin.

BIG POSITIVE

One great news for Indian cricket is that young Indian players, especially batsmen, are overshadowing the overseas players and I am not talking about the big names.

Of course, it helps that they play spin better than overseas batsmen, but you get the impression that a few years in IPL have made them seasoned players.

They seem to have got an idea of how to play an impact innings. Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Karun Nair and Nitish Rana are some of the players in this club.

The latest addition to this club is Prithvi Shaw. He has had an incredible start to his IPL career. What is impressive about him is his ability to score runs off every ball, no matter what the bowling.

He is a hard batsman to pin down because of the range of shots he has. Such batsmen carry great value in limitedovers cricket.