Mumbai: It took Shardul Thakur eleven years of playing IPL cricket for six franchises to get into the home dressing room at the Wankhede. In only two balls, he was among the wickets in the Mumbai Indians jersey against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday night. The moment he cut short Finn Allen’s threatening innings in the sixth over, cliches followed in commentary. “He has a bit of a golden arm.”
As KKR batters continued mayhem at the crease, Thakur struck another crucial blow in the 9th over. Another banal articulation of the bowler’s success was heard on air: “He has this knack of picking up wickets.”
Golden arm almost equates to good fortune. Knack can be a gift, an instinct. But there’s more to Shardul Thakur’s bowling than just luck. If he’s made a habit of picking wickets, that comes to fruition, not without skills and the cunning of a fast bowler.
At 34, Thakur is more in the back half of his playing journey than mid-way. After his disastrous Test debut in 2018, which lasted only ten balls and several injuries later, he has learnt to be smart to stay in business.
“Firstly, he has the skills. He reads the game really well and I think he keeps it simple,” said Ajinkya Rahane, KKR captain, who was Thakur’s third scalp.
“Today, what was important for bowlers was to bowl the slower balls, slightly wider…knuckle balls, slower bouncers as well. For the first 6 overs, they (other bowlers) went too hard, as in fast. Not many slower balls. That’s why we got 78 runs, they also got 80 runs in the Powerplay. I think slower deliveries were really important.”
First innings data backed Rahane’s point. KKR batters managed only a strike rate (SR) of 110 against pace-off deliveries, while they scored most freely (SR 173) against balls bowled with pace.
Homecoming
For many years, Thakur had dreamt of playing for MI, having been a net bowler for the franchise in his early days from 2010-12, without making the grade. Now captain of the Mumbai Ranji team, he longed to call his city franchise home in a tournament that tops the popularity charts. On the face of it, it was a tough initiation – asked to bowl on the flattest of decks. It was the same T20 World Cup semi-final surface from few weeks ago where India had scored 253 and won only by 7 runs against England.
But it’s a challenge Thakur knew he would have to be up for. MI was always going to lay out a flat deck for KKR to limit the threat of the opposing mystery spinners. And Thakur was always going to be picked ahead of Deepak Chahar, as they needed his middle-overs expertise. They had plenty of new ball options.
With that knowledge, against the purple franchise he played for in 2023, Thakur smartly slipped in his slower balls to good effect from his wide basket of deliveries. The delivery that got Allen was slow (117.2 kph) and bowled into the wicket, but fuller. The slower ball that got Green was 119.4 kph – banged in shorter, and outside the off stump. Because Thakur possesses the natural outswinger, the cross-seamer, and wobble seam, he can also slip in a sharp bouncer and a yorker; there is an element of surprise with his slower balls, whether they are knuckle balls or conventional ones.
In a match that saw 444 runs scored and 8 wickets fall (one of which was a run-out), Thakur picked up 3 wickets. On pitches where there is little help on offer and margins are small, Thakur knows how to construct an over, and even when the onslaught is on, how to get out of it. Not always does he get it right. And being economical is not his forte. But with a throng of skills, he keeps finding ways to get wickets.
As for the Lord Thakur memes and names that follow, the Mumbai pacer welcomes them with open arms. “I like them because people give names with love. So it’s not really a ‘meme, meme’; just a way for people to show love,” he said at the presentation.
There was more love to come from his new franchise. “I told him, enough hopping of franchises. You have to be here for the rest of your career,” MI captain Hardik Pandya said before he joined the owners to congratulate their new recruit for his role in helping the team break the sequence of losses in opening matches.
