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And just like that, the IPL season has come and gone, giving every viewer quite of enjoyable memories and heartbreaks alike. While a lot of analysis has gone into understanding the season through various parameters, trying to look into the most successful tactical decisions made by the various teams would provide a better insight, as it were these decisions that played decisive roles in the end.
Some of the decisions hit the nail exactly on the head, while the others did not. Some got noticed, while others did not. But with that being said, these changes are definitely ideas that the different teams can carry on towards next season.
Starting from CSK using Rayudu as an opener, to Rahane using Krishnappa Gowtham to open his bowling, here are a few important decisions that summed up the tournament's run for most teams.
#1 Assigning Ambati Rayudu the opening duties in CSK
Prior to the recently concluded IPL season, Ambati Rayudu had been a mainstay in the Mumbai Indians' batting setup for years, where, quite notably, he hasn't opened a single inning. Rayudu had only opened the batting in a handful of occasions before, all of it in domestic T20 games for his state sides.
He was a regular No. 3 and No. 4 for Mumbai Indians. The decision to open the batting with him can strongly be attributed as a classic Chennai Super Kings move: back one's players to make a change from what they are used to, then to trust their strengths and see if it comes off. MS Dhoni's logic behind the move was that he rated Rayudu's hitting abilities against both pace and spin quite highly. Rayudu himself said there was little more to it apart from "seeing the ball well" for the best part of the season.
As it turned out, he had his most productive IPL season this time, by a huge distance, topping the Super Kings' run charts, and leading the chase for Orange Cap for a good part of the season. Along the way, he smashed a match-winning unbeaten 100* against Sunrisers Hyderabad, his first ever IPL ton.
On other days, when he wasn't required to open the batting, or to give up some space for players like Watson or Faf du Plessis, he came in at his familiar No. 4 spot where he played valuable middle-over cameos. Overall, Rayudu's promotion at the top of the order proved a masterstroke that gave CSK some early momentum which they carried throughout the season without any qualms.
#2 KKR and the batting scheme
Kolkata Knight Riders have been at the forefront of this change over the last two years, after deciding to open with Sunil Narine and Chris Gayle following the loss of Andre Russell down the order during IPL 2017.
The result is not only an explosive start more often than not, but also a good record in the initial batting powerplay. One of the highlighting facts of a T20 game is that the batting team has all of the ten wickets they can play with, for a sum total of just twenty overs. That is two overs per wicket fallen. The best T20 batting sides are those that utilise their available batting resources in these 20 overs in an optimum way.
By optimum, I do not intend that a side be filled with all-time batting greats. Different stages along an innings need different ways of playing.
And at the end of two successive seasons, the outcome they have effected is incredible. Taking a cue from just this season, it is true that no other team has as many wickets as them - 26 - in the batting powerplays, but no one has come close to their 9.11 run rate either.
It's not like they let up after that either - their average first-innings score was 191, the tournament's highest - and thanks to a big-hitter in Russell and a steady hand in skipper Dinesh Karthik in the middle order, they had the best middle-overs run rate too.
This approach showed in their chasing as well: in a tournament of close finishes, Knight Riders' attacking approach resulted in just two of their six successful chases going into the final over. They failed to chase totals down just thrice in 16 matches, but the approach was always the same.
Even when a wicket fell, finding the boundary was prioritised over settling in. Following the Narine antics, what happened the previous ball did not influence how the next one was played. It could well be the T20 batting template going forward, as sides look to go top-heavy in the quest for bigger totals.
#3 The offspinner who opened the bowling - Gowtham from Rajasthan
All eight sides dished out a liberal dose of spin-bowling during the Powerplay this past season because of various reasons including trying to establish control over run-flow, but it was Rajasthan Royals who took it to a different level with Krishnappa Gowtham.
He was their first-choice opening bowler and ended up bowling more overs in the Powerplay than any of his team-mates. Fingerspinners have opened the bowling in the IPL for a while now, but nobody except Ravi Ashwin during the 2011 and 2012 seasons, has finished a season having bowled more than Gowtham's 25 Powerplay overs this IPL.
Nearly half of them were first overs, where sides - especially while batting first - often try to get an idea of what the pitch is offering, before going on to make full use of the fielding restrictions.
Gowtham's first overs went for less than seven runs on an average, and nobody struck more than his three wickets. In chases, he provided crucial early breakthroughs when batsmen tried to go for the big shots. Gowtham's Powerplay overs saved his side more than runs than any other player or team, which finally concludes as one of the main reasons why Rajasthan qualified for the playoffs.
Even when Jofra Archer went for runs on one end, the presence of Gowtham on the other end must have had a calming influence on skipper Rahane more often than not, especially when the top-order batsman had a torrid time managing his team in the context of several other departments, including middle-order woes.
#4 The Ngidi effect on CSK
It surprised many when Super Kings picked Lungisani Ngidi. The only performance of Ngidi that people remembered prior to the IPL was the dominant outing he mustered against India in a Test match earlier this year. Because of the same reason, he was widely regarded as a Test-bowler and not really good for limited overs.
He hadn't made a big name for himself as a T20 player till that point. That was probably the reason for MS Dhoni to not start him as a first-choice earlier on in the game.
But later, as Dhoni remarked himself, "we need Ngidi and Asif (the pacer from Kerala) to ball the quicker ones when needed. That is why they are in the team". Ngidi became a regular member of the first eleven late in the tournament.
In just seven games, he gave the Super Kings control in the Powerplay and, more importantly, the thriftiness in the slog-overs that they were lacking early on in the season. His 10/4 in the allotted four overs against Punjab in the final match of the group stage literally washed away the northerners, quashing all hopes of a playoff entry. They were just not prepared to face CSK's spearhead. Such was the power and influence of Ngidi.
#5 Umesh Yadav, bowling sensation in the powerplay
Virat Kohli's use of Umesh Yadav, arguably the tournament's most potent strike force in the initial powerplay, came in for well-deserved praise. In what was one of Virat Kohli's better decisions that came rarely this season, he aimed at going behind wickets with his strike bowler, instead of waiting till the death overs to finish his quota.
Umesh, in turn, bowled maidens and wicket-maidens early on, en route to his most successful IPL season: 20 wickets from 14 games at an economy rate of 7.86. He is also one of the few strike bowlers to finish his quota before ten overs, and he did so more number of times than any other bowler. It was Umesh's undying efforts that played a remarkable role in bundling out KXIP for just 88, which made a playoff chance near possible for RCB.
Courtesy of his efforts, Umesh Yadav will most certainly find his place in the national squad as well and could go on to become one of India's chief attacking options ahead of the 2019 World Cup.
#6 Kings XI's use of the mystery spinner
When IPL 2018 began, Mujeeb Ur Rahman was far from well-known in India. Nowhere close to Chris Gayle anyway. And so when Kings XI picked the mystery spinner ahead of the West Indian opener for their first game of the season, more than a few eyebrows were raised. Not for too long, though, as he restricted Delhi Daredevils on debut with figures of 4-0-28-2.
He was given the last over of the match, with DD needing 17 to win off it, and with mighty Shreyas Iyer on strike. However, the young lad, who broke the world record earlier that day for the youngest-ever to appear in international T20s, maintained his resolve, sending Iyer into the hands of Aaron Finch at deep-mid on in the last ball, and winning the game for Punjab.
In a tournament where captains rationed their use of attacking spinners in the powerplay, Ashwin routinely tossed the ball to Mujeeb in the first six, and the results showed: even with runs leaking in the other end, Mujeeb was able to control it from his side, thereby bringing a balance for Punjab to work upon. All of this is in addition to Mujeeb executing his primary role of bowling through the middle overs to perfection.
His importance was much understood in his absence during the back-end of the tournament, as Kings XI's bowling attack, with the exception of Andrew Tye, struggled. Punjab, who looked well into qualifying for the playoffs at one stage, lost five matches in a row and bowed out of the competition.
#7 The Prithvi Shaw Show
Ricky Ponting's track record in the IPL is quite recognised, though not as a player. He stepped down as captain after a disastrous start to Mumbai Indians' title-winning 2012 season and brought up youngsters like Hardik and Krunal Pandya during his time as a coach there.
In short, a man unafraid of making big, bold calls, even in the middle of a season when the title is at stake. This time again, after Gambhir's struggles with the bat early on and his eventual stepping down from captaincy, Ponting, now Delhi Daredevils' head coach, backed highly-rated youngster Prithwi Shaw to open the batting.
Shaw has been making waves in the Under-19 and domestic first-class circuits for quite some time now, but before IPL 2018, he was a T20 newbie, having played just one game. It turned out to be an inspired change, as his fearless hitting at the top of the order, along with fellow youngsters Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer carried the Daredevils' batting for the rest of the season. So much that even with the likes of Colin Munro and Jason Roy at their disposal, they backed their Indian talent enough to play just three overseas players by the end of the tournament.
Along with Shaw, a little has to be mentioned about the two others as well - Iyer and Pant. Pant had a really explosive season, amassing 684 runs in 14 matches, including a career-best 128. Iyer was by no means poor either. He too had a good run, scoring over 400 runs, eclipsing the likes of fellow captains Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and so on in the list of run-scorers. Even though DD failed to make it big this time around, these three youngsters are heavy positives that they can carry on towards the next season.
Do you think that were any other tactical decisions that went under the radar? Let us know in the comments section below
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