Drop Jonny Bairstow and find razaa - how PBKS can attack IPL 2024 after Chinnaswamy heartbreak
Post-match interviews after a defeat in the IPL are generally the repetition of same media-trained words without too much insight unless it's MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli or Ravichandran Ashwin speaking. Most captains try to play it down, to also keep the confidence up in the team, while in rare cases some blame a few players.
Thus, Shikhar Dhawan's remarks after Punjab Kings (PBKS)'s defeat against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on Monday were unique in some ways.
"It was a good game, we pulled the game back in our favour, but we were 10 or 15 runs short but other than that we were good... I could've played bit more quickly in the powerplay, that's the only thing I felt and we lost too many wickets and put pressure on us," he said.
Taking the responsibility of your side's defeat as the captain, especially in men's cricket, is so rare it's hard to remember the last time it happened.
Dhawan indeed could have gone harder in the powerplay and that cost his team, as Dinesh Karthik and Mahipal Lomror's breath-taking partnership sealed a four-wicket home win for RCB with four balls to spare.
But Dhawan can afford to cut himself some slack. He hasn't had a lot of cricket to play in the buildup and generally, when batting at the Chinnaswamy, you can afford to take some time in the powerplay because you know you can make up for it.
He'll need to be better at the top of the order but that won't help solve PBKS' other problems, like their struggle against spin: they lost two wickets to Glenn Maxwell's part-time off-spin and scored 17 runs in Mayank Dagar's first three overs.
Dagar's figures were ruined by Jitesh Sharma's assault in his last over but even still the latter ended his innings with a middling strike rate of 135. It took a cameo of 21* (8) from Shashank Singh to keep PBKS in the game after the first innings.
Neither Liam Livingstone nor Sam Curran could get going in the middle-overs and seemed to be needing more time and support from the other end. And when it came to their own bowling, PBKS couldn't build similar pressure with spin in the middle-overs despite Harpreet Brar's magnificent spell of 2/13.
Many problems for PBKS, one Raza
It's very early days, certainly. And whoever gets dropped after just two matches, one of which was a win, would feel hard done.
But Dhawan's partner and English wicketkeeper-batter Jonny Bairstow would agree that he's doing more harm than good to PBKS at his curent form.
Even though he was unlucky to be run-out in the previous match, the wicketkeeper-batter has just one half-century in his last 22 innings across formats. His average in the shortest format in the last three years reads at just 20.28.
Even against RCB, he played a couple of dots, then hit Mohammed Siraj for consecutive boundaries before skying a pull on the third.
Now, what would dropping him mean for PBKS? First of all, it would bring back Prabhsimran Singh to his usual position at the top of the order.
In IPL 2023, PBKS's problem wasn't opening. Singh used to get going early -- he had the seventh-best powerplay strike-rate (minimum 150 runs) -- and Dhawan used to take his time followed by middle-order struggles and bowling issues.
Shifting Singh to number three - where he's still performing well - is like putting a band-aid on the arm when you have cut your knee. When the youngster has the liscence to take on the bowlers, he should get maxium balls in the powerplay.
Also read: 'Fearless but not careless' Prabhsimran Singh and what he brings to India
It would also allow PBKS to prevent Curran from taking finishing duties and instead bat at number three where he can anchor the innings and set-up an explosive finish.
The problem against spin could be solved by allowing flexibility at the number four position. Jitesh or Livingstone (who's great against pace) could come in depending on the situation. To give them the licence to play their natural game, PBKS could use Sikandar Raza as the finisher by bringing him in for Bairstow.
The Zimbabwe all-rounder played seven innings last season, his maiden in the IPL, scoring 139 runs at a strike rate of 142. He gave the team excellent finishing touches in each of his last four matches -- three of which resulted in wins.
In these matches, he also snapped the wickets of Ruturaj Gaikwad and Deepak Hooda with his off-spin. He has already shown a penchant for picking wickets against the run of play for Zimbabwe and would be an excellent eighth bowling options for Dhawan to play around with the match-ups.
Razaa in Urdu means the state of being pleased or content. It's a feeling PBKS haven't found by spending far too many seasons being reactive.
Even though the loss to RCB wouldn't ring alarm bells, it could serve as a wake-up call to be more proactive and look at the player who can put all others in their desired spots and make the team function with more balance. Bring in Raza and you might just find razaa.