Lockie’s full range: Speed, bouncers and slow yorkers
NEW DELHI: Never mind the evolution of the T20 format and the tactical layers that it has unfurled, the battle between a searing quick bowler and a top batter provides an adrenaline rush like no other. Even if it lasts all of two balls, as the contest between Lockie Ferguson and Jos Buttler did on Thursday, encapsulating the fluctuations that can occur in the shortest version.
Buttler seemed keen on making a mockery of the 193-run target that Gujarat Titans had set for Rajasthan Royals, racing to 48 off 22 balls by the time Ferguson was introduced in the sixth over. Ferguson dismissed R Ashwin but Buttler was unfazed. Off his very first ball against Ferguson, Buttler moved across and scooped a 146kmph back of a length delivery over fine leg for six. It took Buttler to 54 off 23 balls. A spontaneous response from Ferguson might have been to bowl that next one even faster. That is perhaps what Buttler anticipated. Instead, he bowled a slower yorker that flummoxed the opener and clattered his stumps.
Ferguson went on to finish with figures of 3/23, showing his readiness to take up the mantle of being GT’s strike bowler. In an attack that includes Rashid Khan and Mohammed Shami, you can’t ask for more from the Kiwi. No overseas pacer has taken more wickets than Ferguson (8).
It is exactly what GT must have been hoping for when they shelled out ₹10 crore for the 30-year-old from Auckland. The hefty price tag was a little bit of a gamble considering Ferguson hadn’t really played a leading role in any of his previous IPL stints. Having first represented Rising Pune Supergiant in 2017, he was roped in by KKR for 2019. He played just five games each in 2019 and 2020, taking two and six wickets respectively.
In KKR’s march to the final in 2021, he got to play a more prominent role with 13 wickets in eight matches, but the extra game time was largely due to the unavailability of Pat Cummins for the second half of the season.
There’s no need for Ferguson to look over his shoulder anymore. He has played in all GT’s matches and has often been skipper Hardik Pandya’s go to man. The role of an enforcer sits comfortably with Ferguson. For New Zealand too, he doesn’t get to bowl with the new ball given that they have Trent Boult and Tim Southee in their ranks. But in the 2019 World Cup in England, he seldom disappointed when his side needed to make inroads into the opposition’s line-up. He finished second in the list of wicket-takers with 21 scalps, ensuring that a tinge of hostility was added to the New Zealand bowling unit.
Extreme pace can be a doubleedged sword in white-ball cricket. As we have seen in this IPL, the likes of Cummins, Kagiso Rabada and Umran Malik have travelled the distance despite ramping up the speedometer. Cummins’s economy rate is 12.5 after two games while Malik and Rabada have conceded runs at 10.42 and 8.21 per over respectively. In comparison, Ferguson’s economy rate is 7.7. He is aware, though, that he can occasionally get the rough end of the stick. In the game against SRH, his four overs went for 46. “In India, spin tends to play a big role. With the nature of my role, some nights you are going to get hit for runs. That’s the risk you take. But when you take wickets, you can change the game,” Ferguson said recently.
Ferguson certainly changed the game in GT’s second match. Defending 171 against DC, he took out Prithvi Shaw, Mandeep Singh, Rishabh Pant and Axar Patel with an impeccable spell that read 4-0-28-4. If he can sustain these standards, Ferguson will be well on his way to unlocking the full extent of his capability as a strike bowler.