IPL 2021: Ranking all teams based on their death bowling ahead of the season

Bowling is one of the 3 major aspects of the game of cricket and there are several different dimensions involved in it. Bowling during the powerplay, the first half of the middle overs, the second half of the middle overs, and during the death are all very different and have their own challenges.

Death bowling is considered to be the toughest challenge for a bowler as batsmen look to score runs at significantly higher strike rates. Fast bowlers use several variations including yorkers, bouncers, and slower balls in order to restrict the flow of runs.

IPL has seen several world-class death bowlers over the last 13 years in the form of Lasith Malinga, Dwayne Bravo, Jasprit Bumrah, and many more. Teams often focus on buying good quality death bowlers, and such players even tend to attract big bids as was seen when the likes of Chris Morris and Jhye Richardson were sold for Rs. 14 crores or more. Having bowlers who are effective during the death is often the difference between teams that win titles and teams that don’t.

On that note, here’s a ranking of all teams based on their death bowling ahead of IPL 2021:

8. Royal Challengers Bangalore

RCB have always struggled with their death bowling and it has been one of the main reasons behind their mediocre results every season. They bought Chris Morris last season to rectify the issue, and he did his bit as he conceded at just 6.63. However, they surprisingly released him ahead of the recently concluded auction and instead replaced him with Kyle Jamieson.

While Kyle Jamieson has been excellent in the few Test matches that he has played till now, he is yet to prove himself as a top-notch T20 bowler.

In his 6 T20Is for New Zealand, he has picked up just 4 wickets while conceding at 9.38. He hasn’t looked in great rhythm during the ongoing series against Australia and conceded 88 runs in just 7 overs. RCB’s Australian duo of Daniel Sams and Kane Richardson has performed well during the death overs in the Big Bash, but whether they will be able to do the same in the IPL remains doubtful.

They are predominantly slower ball bowlers and with an increase in quality of batsmen and decrease in size of grounds, they are likely to struggle in India. The margin of error is very less when bowling slower balls and even a small error in execution could prove to be costly as even mishits can clear the ropes in some of the Indian grounds. Mohammed Siraj isn’t great at the death either while Navdeep Saini hasn’t been in great form over the last few months.