It is not without reason that New Zealand great Martin Crowe, who passed away earlier this month, was considered the pioneer of Twenty20 cricket. It was back in 1992 during the World Cup that Crowe had foreseen the shifting balance between bat and ball and how the game was getting more tilted towards the batsmen. Low-scoring games were not considered successful as the spectators just couldn't have enough of the boundaries and breathtaking shots.
Crowe took the whole world by surprise when he made spinner Dipak Patel open the New Zealand bowling. The move paid dividends as the opposing teams hardly had any ideas as to how to tackle Patel's offspinners. Spinners opening the bowling in T20s nowadays it is a common tactic employed by captains.
Another revolutionary move by Crowe in the 1992 World Cup was the opening of the batting by pinch-hitters like Mark Greatbatch to take full advantage of the field restrictions in the first 15 overs. Since then the power hitters opening the batting has become a common trend and a successful one at that.
Both these tactical moves by Crowe were instrumental in New Zealand reaching the semifinals of the 1992 World Cup till they ran into Inzamam-ul-Haq. The Kiwis were defeated but the phenomenon stayed on. Slower with the ball and faster with the bat.
Malinga, unsurprisingly, tops the list. With his ability to bowl yorkers at will, the pacer has taken 38 wickets in 31 matches in the World T20. In 2009, the edition that Pakistan went on to win, Gul destroyed New Zealand in a three-over burst at The Oval. His outstanding spell of 5/6 was the first five-wicket haul in the World T20.
Malinga has taken the most wickets in the World T20. (AFP Photo)
The ability to bowl the yorker, the bouncer and the slower ball is the secret of success in limited overs cricket. Swing and seam movement is being discounted here because ODIs and T20Is are generally held under floodlights with hardly any overcast conditions that would favour swing and on flat pitches that hardly encourage any seam movement. Moreover, only one bouncer is permitted in T20Is (two in ODIs) and that gives the freedom to the batsman to charge down the wicket and swing his willow with abundance. Or stay back in his crease to play the switch hit or the reverse flick or the scoop over third man or over fine leg.
Easier said than done. The ability to bowl a yorker at will, to surprise the batsman with a bouncer or a slower ball is not easy to master. And the batsman is not a novice. He is a skilful modern-day warrior who has a big bat in his hands as a weapon that can send even mis-hits flying over the boundaries. So it is hardly surprising that no fast bowler has won the Man of the Series award in the five editions of the World T20.
India captain MS Dhoni plays the helicopter shot with such successful regularity that bowlers have stopped bowling yorkers to him. But when the bowlers pitch it upto him, the Indian limited overs captain just takes out his front foot and smashes the ball with such brute force that it goes sailing over the boundary.
Tillakaratne Dilshan has defied all logic by playing the scoop over his and the wicketkeeper's head. Now known as the 'Dilscoop', it requires remarkable skill to take advantage of the pace of the delivery to send the ball over the fence. And in the last Asia Cup encounter against Pakistan, Dilshan changed his grip at the last moment and rammed the Mohammad Amir delivery over short third man. Reverse Dilscoop?
Here is when the spinners come handy for their captains by taking the pace off the ball and keeping the batsmen guessing at the other end by slowing things down but finishing their overs quickly. So while the batsmen have improvised, so have the spinners by having the doosra or sometimes even the teesra. But the margin of error is so low that one small mistake and the batsman ruthlessly smashes the ball to punish the bowler.
A dot ball in the T20s is a luxury for the bowling side that the batting side can ill-afford and the bowlers have to keep two deliveries in mind as they charge in to counter the late movement not of the ball but of the batsman in the crease. So fasten your seat belts and brace up for some serous fast-paced action coming your way.