IPL 2022: With IPL 2022 less than a fortnight away, the speculations are running wild on the streets as fans and pundits are still trying to figure out the best playing eleven for every team. The most important part about the team’s perfect playing eleven is how the right chord of balance can be struck.
When we talk about the right chord of balance, a team must have a perfect mix of the youth and the experienced, a decent blend of agility and big-hitting and a decent rotation between their batting and bowling components.
Even though T20 is a batter’s paradise and with the advent of the new rules, life simply becomes easier for the willow-wielders. Irrespective of how well your batters are placed, it is your bowlers who help you in finding the winning note.
As we talk about bowling, it is important for all of us to figure out the right set of arms with the cherry in their hands for a team to excel to the advanced stages of the tournament. In this story, let us try and trace out the best bowling combination for Punjab Kings.
Needless to say, Kagiso Rabada is a lethal fast bowler and is probably one of the best in the business at the moment. His rollicking displays for the Delhi Capitals allowed them to reach the playoffs in the last edition and the finals in 2020. He is an excellent fast bowler with an arcing knack for kissing the timbre. He pretty often kisses the mark of 140 plus clicks and has a nasty bouncer to add to his arsenal. May it be the powerplay, the middle overs or the death overs, he is a perfect fit wherever you want him to be.
The medium-fast bowler posted a decent show with the cherry in his arms in the last couple of seasons. The only problem for him was that he lacked partners in the Sunrisers Hyderabad lineup.
He has a keen eye for a tight line and has proven himself to be pretty economical against the big guns of the game. Even though the wickets have been hard to come by, yet he has compensated for that with a decent economy rate. With Rabada in the hut, he will be a big man to watch out for.
The leg-spinner will be donning the Punjab jersey for the first time in his IPL career and given his display in the last couple of editions, he will be a real asset to the Kings. Given the fact, the tournament will be unfolding in Mumbai, the pitches are highly conducive to the spinners and Chahar’s leg-spin can forge a real spot of bother for the batters. It will be extremely exciting to see how Punjab lines up with such a talented spinner in their ranks.
Arshdeep proved himself to be a real thorn in the flesh of the batters with a decent display of speed variations. He varies his speed way too frequently and it leaves the batters in a state of a tizzy. The surfaces of Mumbai are a bit inclined to the bowlers who are a bit slower in nature and given Arshdeep’s slow balls being a predominant weapon, he can be a real game-changer in the colours of Punjab Kings.
Fifth bowler: Odean Smith/ Ishan Porel/ Harpreet Brar/ Nathan Ellis
Odean Smith penned a perfect validation for himself when he troubled the Indian batters in the recently concluded West Indian tour of India. He hits the deck hard and often targets the ribs of a batter making it a tad bit difficult to free his arms. Ishan Porel is a decent fast bowler and has been doing quite a justice to his name in the ranks of Bengal.
Harpreet Brar kickstarted his IPL career with a devastating spell that claimed Kohli, ABD and Maxwell and yet the following games saw him falter. Punjab will be hoping that the youngster can rack up some decent consistency. Nathan Ellis is a fine fast bowler and can clock a good deal of pace with a perfect line and length that would nibble back in at times to trouble the batters.
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