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A Sri Lankan flavour to CSK’s bowling edge
The win on Friday against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Chepauk showed Matheesha Pathirana and Maheesh Theekshana could be CSK’s solution to the slog overs conundrum
Of the more celebrated bowlers to emerge from Sri Lanka, Ajantha Mendis will figure somewhere in the middle of the list because his career was brief. What made Mendis synonymous with the wild things in spin bowling though was the variations he popularised when Muttiah Muralitharan was largely focused on turning the ball square — the carrom ball being the pick of them.
Soon R Ashwin came into prominence, quickly followed by Sunil Narine, and the fad of off-spinners consistently bowling the arm-ball and the googly caught on. Chennai Super Kings were always invested in spinners during this phase, backing local boy Ashwin but also picking Muralitharan in the later stages of his career. Sri Lanka's Maheesh Theekshana seems a logical extension to this approach.
Add his compatriot Matheesha Pathirana to this mix and CSK may have found a winning combination that can only get better. Mystery is a common factor in the bowling of Theekshana and Pathirana. Pathirana –Podi (little) Malinga in Sri Lanka – slings his arm Lasith Malinga style, often leaving batters to face the tough job of picking the ball with the umpire’s shirt as backdrop.
Theekshana relies more on bounce and speed than getting spin, a tricky proposition for batters on a pitch where the ball tends to stop and come. So, when CSK skipper MS Dhoni held them back until the end overs, it knocked the wind out of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s sails. Six of CSK’s last eight overs were bowled by Pathirana and Theekshana, conceding just 33 runs and taking three wickets.
Theekshana’s success wasn’t unexpected. On a featherbed of a track at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, where Glen Maxwell was getting down on one leg to swat spinners out of the ground, Theekshana had foxed him with a carrom ball. On Friday, no two deliveries of his were the same, forcing SRH batters to constantly shuffle in their bid to find the right arc against him. They mostly failed, getting one boundary hit out of the 18 balls Theekshana bowled in his second spell.
“He’s very skillful. He's very subtle with his skills, so he's always coming at a player,” said CSK coach Stephen Fleming, who had worked with Theekshana in the SA20 as well, for Johannesburg Super Kings.
"You can't really get into a rhythm as a hitter and his deception is his changes of pace. And I think that just makes them check themselves at times. Even today, he was a little bit faster (and got) a bit more bounce.”
Theekshana, 22, is still trying to find his groove though. “He has been bowling well, but in his first couple of outings, he's tried to find his pace at different grounds. And trying to get us to pace on this ground, more importantly, which we really wanted to own and dominate." He has played three matches so far, and has got better every time ((0/42, 1/41, 1/27).
Carted for 42 runs at Chinnaswamy on a day when no CSK pacer was spared, Pathirana’s IPL debut was less than memorable. But on a two-paced Chepauk pitch, the 20-year-old finally came into his own, getting the wide yorkers, dipping full tosses and slow bouncers right while keeping the batters guessing with his unusual action. That he is not all variations but also sometimes about clever modifications was highlighted in Heinrich Klaasen’s dismissal as he swung hard at a length ball that was just a touch wider than usual. Forced to hit across the line, Klaasen just couldn’t get enough bat on the ball.
“You need time to pick his action,” Dhoni later said about Pathirana. “He has got variation, he has got good pace. We have seen with Malinga – someone who has an awkward action and who is very consistent with line and length – it's difficult to score off him. Definitely he has been a find.”
Not every day can this duo be expected to bail CSK out. Chennai's bowling is a work in progress this IPL, kicking off with Deepak Chahar, Rajvardhan Hangargekar and Mitchell Santner in the first match before trying Ben Stokes, Sisanda Magala, Akash Singh and Moeen Ali in different doses. They have used up 12 bowlers in six matches already. With Tushar Desphande averaging over 11 and Ravindra Jadeja going for 6.76, CSK need to find a balancing act so that Jadeja can focus solely on the middle overs.
Friday’s match showed Pathirana and Theekshana may well be the route to that stability.
