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Follow Us“My best is yet to come,” said Akash Madhwal in the post-match interview after picking 3/31 against Gujarat Titans in Match 57 of IPL 2023.
These were big words coming from a bowler who did not play any red-ball cricket until he was 24 years old. You could have comprehended it in any way. Overconfident? Too proud? Ambitious? Complacent?
It is easy to decipher Madhwal’s statement in any of these shades, depending on your mood or your sense of judgment. However, 15 matches later in the season, he showed he meant it in the most sincere way possible. Despite a match-winning 3/31 against the table toppers that included the wickets of Wriddhiman Saha, Shubman Gill and David Miller, he was not satisfied.
In the Eliminator, he snaffled a record-breaking spell of 5/5, turning Mumbai’s defence of 182 against Lucknow Super Giants into a cakewalk. Lucknow collapsed from 74/3 to 101 all out. Figures of 3.3-0-5-5.
The first-ever five-wicket haul in the IPL playoffs.
The joint best bowling figures by an Indian in IPL
The best bowling figures by an uncapped bowler in IPL
The second-best bowling figures by a Mumbai Indians’ pacer
Most economical (1.42) 5-wicket haul in IPL
It is a Blockbuster performance. It is safe to presume that even Madhwal would not have imagined that when he said his best was yet to come.
His spell in the middle-overs was a knockout punch to Lucknow. Marcus Stoinis’ presence had the game in the balance. Madhwal ripped through the other end, dismissing Ayush Badoni and Nicholas Pooran on successive deliveries in the over. His figures were 2-0-3-3 after that over.
He forced Badoni into an ugly swipe with three dot balls and uprooted his off stump. And the next one was a classic.
The right-arm seamer drew Pooran into a forward push and straightened the ball to knick him off. It is the perfect delivery for any batter early into the innings, let alone Pooran. For a team like Lucknow that relied heavily on three overseas batters, the dismissal halved their batting power. The over itself reduced Lucknow’s chances by 10% on the Cricyltics reel.
He had also set the tone early on, providing Mumbai with their first breakthrough in his opening over with the new ball. Madhwal bowled four spells of an over each and nabbed a wicket in all of them.
Mumbai won a knockout game by 81 runs. There was little expected from their bowling. Rohit Sharma, the skipper, admitted that bowling is their weaker suit and Mumbai consistently opted to bowl first so that the batters can make up for lapses in bowling. However, Madhwal’s inclusion has changed Mumbai’s bowling fortunes.
"As soon as he has come into the team, he has changed our whole line-up basically," Cameron Green said after Mumbai’s last league game.
The 29-year-old has pouched 13 wickets in seven games at an economy of 7.8. Among the 23 pacers who have picked 10 wickets or more this season, Madhwal’s economy is the third-best.
Mumbai have exercised his yorkers to plug the death overs’ hole in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah and inefficient returns from Jofra Archer. Consequently, Madhwal has bowled 45.5% of his overs at the back end. He has provided wickets while maintaining an efficient economy and bowling the tough overs.
He is also skiddy and quick which also makes him an enforcer in the middle overs, as he did against Lucknow. Overall, his record in all phases is fantastic.
Madhwal has been a late bloomer. At the time when many young Indian players make their debut, Madhwal picked up the red ball for the first time. Until four years ago, he was only playing tennis ball cricket across Uttarakhand and the Western Uttar Pradesh region. Uttarakhand’s coach in 2019, Wasim Jaffer roped him into the state team from the trials.
Madhwal struggled with the leather ball for a while, often losing control. He never had any formal coaching growing up. But he soon learned to bowl accurate yorkers with pace and traits that he had carried from Tennis cricket.
“I have been with Uttarakhand Cricket Association ever since they got affiliation with the BCCI in 2018. In 2019, I was a net bowler with Royal Challengers Bangalore. Later on, I joined Mumbai Indians and started out as a net bowler again. Fast forward to today, I am getting the opportunity to play in the team,” Madhwal told in the post-match press conference.
Madhwal was appointed as the captain of the Uttarakhand team in white-ball cricket ahead of this year’s domestic season. He picked nine wickets in the 2022/23 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy at 20 runs apiece with an economy of 7.2. Last year, he joined Mumbai Indians as the injury replacement for Suryakumar Yadav.
The seamer is compensating for his delayed start with a rapid rise. From playing tennis ball cricket four years ago to filling Jasprit Bumrah’s shoes in Mumbai’s surge to the top three, he has proved to be a fast learner.
“That is the tendency of an engineer,” Madhwal said when he was asked about the same by Harsha Bhogle in the post-match presentation. The Uttarakhand seamer is a civil engineer on paper. There is a running joke in India that you get to follow your passion only after completing your engineering.
These past events have lent attributes to Madhwal’s cricket that has shot him to the IPL success. Madhwal has dismissed Shubman Gill, Devon Conway, Heinrich Klaasen, Nicholas Pooran and David Miller. Three of them are the highest run-scorers for their side. He has become a cheat code for Mumbai at present - he picks big wickets and ceases the flow of runs as well.
They were hoping to pair Jasprit Bumrah and Jofra Archer but at present, Madhwal and Bumrah bowling in tandem next year doesn’t look bad by any means. For years, they have stressed on playing two overseas seamers in the XI. Madhwal’s emergence will provide them with the flexibility to absorb the loss of all-rounders from the 2020 batch. For that, Mumbai will hope that the latest product of their scout team continues on this path of glory.
