Vasanth Kumar investigates in his first piece for World Cricket Badger what ingredients are required to make a successful twenty20 side…
Chennai Super Kings (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
After watching a grand chase by my favourite Chennai Super Kings in the third league match of the CLt20, I began to contemplate the complexities of cricket’s shortest format.
We all know how Test matches should be played - they require a steady and solid approach. One-day games require brain games with powerplays and death overs. But how are t20s to be played. Are those that say it’s just slogging abilities you require to be a top t20 team correct?
If you say that a team who can slog the ball well can only be a top t20 team, then Royal Challengers Bangalore should have won at least three Indian Premier League (IPL) tournaments with Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli in their ranks.
If you say tactics and some planning are an advantage in the shortest format then Rahul Dravid’s Rajasthan Royals should have won at least a couple of trophies.
AB De Villiers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Or, if you say a team with clever bowling unit will dominate a t20 game then make a case for Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Now I can more clearly explain this with two top t20 teams currently playing in the Champions League t20 (CLt20).
Let us look at Otago Volts at first. We have noticed a significant change in their approach in this edition of the CLt20. They continue to win matches and also by watching the great Chennai Super Kings I have managed to find the winning formula, or we should say, the way to play t20s.
These two sides have much in common. A mixture of classic stroke makers like Hamish Rutherford and Michael Hussey, a combination of deadly hitters of the ball like Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina along with the street smart all rounders like Dwayne Bravo, Jimmy Neesham, Ravindra Jadeja, Ryan Ten Doeschate who also play an integral part in t20 success.
Dwayne Bravo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When you bat first in a t20 game, those classic batsmen at the top will always build a solid platform beyond which you can post a grand total with the help of more natural sloggers down the order. And if you want to chase down a big total, we can take a clear cut example of what happened in the CLt20 matches between CSK and the Titans. And if you are chasing a small target in tricky conditions against healthy bowling unit, that is the scenario where batsmen who are all rounders would become handy in case of a batting collapse. Many of us would have seen Bravo or Jadeja saved CSK in some of the chases. Not only in small chases but also in chasing a big total.
And it’s not Gurunath Meyyapan or Srinivasan behind CSK’s wins, but it’s the quality of all rounders they have. All rounders form the nucleus of a bowling unit. There are only few games in t20s where a team won by a five wicket haul of a bowler or by an individual bowler’s brilliance. Spinners do get spanked most of the times except some special cases like Narine. In the powerplay overs and in the death overs, batsmen would go bang without any doubt. The middle overs are the ones where spinners or wise pace bowlers come to the fore - you need street smart bowlers in these scenarios.
For Otago Volts, Neesham and Ten Doeschate do that perfectly. They bowl very tight lines, wicket potential all the time, Bravo, Albie Morkel, Chris Morris are doing it for CSK. This always do the trick in the t20s. To be a consistent winning side, your team must have atleast glimpses of this formulae.
James Buttler
As the editor of World Cricket Badger he is intent on building the website to give quality coverage of the domestic game around the world.
He is also the presenter of the Cricket Badger Radio Show on Radio Yorkshire every Tuesday evening between 7-9pm UK time.
James was the full-time Media Manager at Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 2007 and 2010.
James is a published author, a writer/video contributor to many cricket publications and a complete cricket badger!
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