Punjab Kings pacer Arshdeep Singh provided a masterclass in death bowling against the Mumbai Indians to help PBKS win by 13 runs while defending 214.
In a game where 415 runs were scored in 40 overs, the left-arm seamer returned with brilliant figures of 4/29. And while Sam Curran got the Player of the Match, for his 29-ball 55, he said that he feels he shouldn’t get this award and praised his bowlers for the way they bowled in the last few overs under high pressure.
So what makes Arshdeep Singh so special as a death bowler?
Death overs bowling prowess
After losing the match, Rohit Sharma said of Arshdeep Singh, “Got to give credit to Arshdeep, how he bowled in the last couple of overs.”
This was high priase from the man who was not only the opposing skipper on the night, but the Indian team captain who had believed in Arsdheep Singh to lead the Indian pace attack at the T20 World Cup 2022 last year after his thorougly impressive show.
Against MI, as their batters were getting rampant, Arshdeep gave away only 5 runs in the last 11 balls he bowled and took 3 wickets, most importantly that of the belligerent Suryakumar Yadav with a low full toss. In the last over, then he knocked over Tilak Varma and Nehal Wadhera with excellent yorkers, which also meant that Tim David remained on the non-striker’s end.
Arshdeep Singh is arguably the best T20 death bowler in the world currently: an ESPNcricinfo stat says, “Since 2022, only four men have delivered at least 60 overs in the last four of a T20 game and taken a minimum of 30 wickets. He’s one of them and he has the best average and the best economy rate of the lot.”
He has the smarts of varying pace and length
Apart from his pin-point yorkers, what Arshdeep also has is smarts of changing his pace and varying hsi lengths to outsmart the batter.
A prime example of it came against Tilak Varma: Varma is an in-form batter who is reading the bowler’s mind. So, on the 2nd ball of the 20th over, when he bent down to scoop what he expected to be a full ball, Arshdeep was smart in dragging down his length and bowl a short ball which was not a wide, but just enough to evade Varma and take him by surprise on his scoop shot. It was a sensational peice of mind-battle between the two youngsters in which the bowler came on top.
Incredible temperament
The way Arshdeep Singh handle the immense pressure of bowling in the death overs, especially when defending a total tells of his superb, calm, composed temperament. After saving the match against MI, in a literally stump-breaking manner, the 24-year-old even had a joke ready: when Danny Morrison asked him about the pressure, Arshdeep replied, “I guess Danny you should come next to me and feel the heart beat; it’s not even 120.”
