Jaydev Unadkat wants bowlers to be adaptable and unpredictable

Hyderabad has hosted two games in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, and the surface behaved in contrasting fashion in both. In the first game, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) pulverised the Mumbai Indians (MI), scoring 277, and they managed to reach within 31 runs of the target. 

A run-fest was expected in the second game as well. Still, after the first half of both the batting innings, the pitch started holding up considerably, and the pacers from both sides started banging their deliveries in the pitch to vary the pace and trajectory of their deliveries. Pacer Jaydev Unadkat talked about adapting to such variation in playing conditions on the same ground in the press conference after the game. 

“From what we have seen so far, both wickets [at Hyderabad] have been such that the slower balls were sticking into the pitch. It’s about adapting to the conditions, which suitable for that kind of delivery [slower ones] and the opposition. It’s a venue where you can use the big square boundaries if you plan your bowling according to it.”

“But that doesn’t mean it’s the only strategy we use in the tournament. It might be that we would have to stick to a Yorker or length strategy. So it depends on what kind of surface we are playing on, and adapting to the surface will be crucial,” Unadkat said. 

The SRH pacers understood the “crucial” assignment and gave only 124 runs in 16 overs at an economy of 7.7 as they bowled the majority of their deliveries on a good length and short. Only 50 runs were scored in the last seven overs of Chennai Super Kings' (CSK) innings. In the end, even their coach, Stephen Fleming, felt that they were 15 short. 

SRH’s three main pacers - Pat Cummins, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jaydev Unadkat, realised that the ideal thing to do on the surface was to hit the length and take the pace off. That’s what they did, and Unadkat nicely elucidated how that plan worked in the context of the new two bouncers and impact substitute rules. 

“From my point of view, even if the wicket played differently and lots of runs were scored, the moment it was decided that there would be two bouncers allowed in an over, that’s when all the bowlers I’ve been talking are of the point of view that we’ve got to use them at some point. Someone who has pace can use the pace on bouncers.”

“But slower bouncers are working nowadays because everyone is trying to muscle the ball down the ground due to the extra batter in the lineup because of the impact rule…You’ve got to be unpredictable in terms of what your line will be and what your pace will be,” Unadkat said as the press conference ended. 

SRH play their next game on April 9 at Mullanpur, Punjab and Unadkat’s suggestions on being unpredictable as a bowler might come in quite handy there on a surface which has assisted the batters so far.