IPL 2022: Rajasthan Royals seem to have the perfect lineup but they have balance issues to fix – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

At first glance, nothing seems wrong with the Rajasthan Royals lineup. In R. Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal, they have probably the best pair of spinners in the tournament. Trent Boult and Prasidh Krishna, two contrasting fast bowlers, share new ball. And they have zeroed down on Kuldeep Sen as the fifth bowler, a man who makes up for lack of IPL experience with pace and accuracy to emerge as an excellent death bowler.

All five have been in excellent form. The back-up – Obed McCoy, Navdeep Saini – would probably have made it to the starting XIs of some other franchise.

Rajasthan Royals have an issue in finding the perfect team balance. AP

And then, there is Jos Buttler (who has a 192-run cushion on the Orange Cap while striking at 155), Shimron Hetmyer (strike rate 160), Sanju Samson (168), and Riyan Parag (153). Combine that with the bowling, and it should have made Rajasthan a near-perfect line-up.

And yet, it does not. With 12 points from nine matches, Rajasthan are second, behind only Gujarat Titans. They look set to qualify for the playoffs. And yet, there have been moments when they have looked vulnerable, something that may be exposed by the time the final stage of the tournament gets underway.

In cricket, batting revolves around making the most of the two resources available to the side – balls and the ten wickets. In Test cricket, especially in the first innings, wickets are almost always the only important parameter. In ODIs, the balance is more even. In Twenty20 cricket, a team is likelier to run out of balls than wickets, so risks are more.

For a few years until 2021, the Rajasthan Royals middle order consisted of cricketers who could chip in with both ball and bat. In 2022, the focus shifted to specialists. Since a team is unlikely to get bowled out in Twenty20, why focus on all-rounders? If a side had six quality batters (including the wicketkeeper), that should take care of the batting. The five specialist bowlers would do the rest.

While this seems logical, it comes with a problem. If a side has two bowlers who can bat, that takes the number of batters in the line-up to eight. A batter, on an average, needs to face 15 balls out of 120. If one bowler bats, the average goes up to 17. If none of them do, it goes up to 20.

The problem is apparent. Rajasthan Royals are a side that has to bat for 20 balls per batter per innings. Buttler has compensated for that by facing 41 balls every time he bats – while striking at 155. However, the other three quick scorers – Samson, Hetmyer, and Parag – have not. Between them, they bat for 43 balls per innings. R. Ashwin’s newfound slogging avatar, while effective, is for nine balls an innings, often not long enough to make an impact.

As a result, Rajasthan have been left with, on an average, about five overs, where they strike at 113. Devdutt Padikkal, the only batter they have backed for all nine matches, has struck at only 126, roughly the same as Yashasvi Jaiswal.

The other specialist batters – Daryl Mitchell, Rassie van der Dussen, Karun Nair – have all struggled. Time and again have, thus, Rajasthan got away because Buttler has borne the burden of two batters, making up for the underperformance of one of the six in the line-up. If he fails, thus, the impact is likelier to be twice as much as the failure of any other batter.

One may argue that Hetmyer, Rajasthan’s other outstanding batter of the season, has remained not out five times in nine innings. While that is true, it can be asked whether he bats too low in the batting order. Perhaps allowing him to bat more overs may address this problem. Sixteen balls per match are perhaps reasonable if a side has eight men who can hit, not six, or even seven.

The batting might not have lived up to expectations, but Rajasthan’s bowling has generally been excellent. At the same time, the fact that none of their bowlers – barring Ashwin, whose batting they have used in various roles – can contribute with bat, has forced them to delay the advent of Hetmyer. It is not easy to take risks if you are the last recognised batter in the line-up.

The other problem Rajasthan face is the lack of a sixth bowler. Between them, Parag and Mitchell have played 11 matches, and have figures of 6-0-86-1. If a bowler has an off day or, worse, pulls a hamstring early in his spell, Rajasthan may end up having to chase a target beyond even Buttler and Hetmyer’s scope.

Bringing in Jimmy Neesham for a batter may address this, but that will mean Neesham having to bat at six. Given that Samson has lasted 16 balls per innings, that will be an enormous risk, but that may also enable them to promote Hetmyer to four or five, allowing them to face twice as many balls per innings as he has faced.

There is no obvious solution to Rajasthan’s team imbalance. They will almost certainly make it to the next stage, but beyond that, they have a problem in their hands.

Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor at CricketNews and co-author of Sachin and Azhar at Cape Town.

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