Is holding on to wickets while chasing a “gettable” total the right approach?

confronted with low totals, or at any rate totals that are not himalayan, teams that are chasing are trying to adopt a safety first and mayhem later approach. you saw that especially with the mumbai indians when they chased 168 against the deccan chargers and a mere 120 against the king’s xi punjab. or for that matter in a rather more successful chase, rajasthan royals against delhi daredevils.

yusuf pathan was the saviour for the royals again, as indeed he was in the super over game against the kolkata knight riders. in fact he is making a very ordinary batting line-up (certainly that is the way it looks at this stage up) look better than it is. the mumbai indians on the other hand seem a lot more pedigreed and yet they have now fallen short in two chases and maybe there is a story there.

when confronted by what they think is a “gettable” total, teams can make the mistake of leaving too much for the end. that means they need to keep wickets and in fact, keeping wickets becomes a greater need than getting runs on the board. that makes everybody tense, the batsmen themselves, the players in the dug-out and supporters back home. one way to restore freedom to the batting side is to nominate two players who will play the same way independant of the situation and leave it to the other five to play measured innings. if five batsmen can’t win you a game in t20 you have a problem anyway.

teams like the mumbai indians though might be better served by staying ahead of the required run rate when the time out arrives. it is an interesting analysis to make. are teams that are behind the asking rate at the halfway point losing more matches than they win?

meanwhile the bowlers continue to have fun as batsmen struggle to match the combination of good bounce and less pace. it is becoming a bowler’s tournament though i wonder sometimes if the batsmen are almost allowing it to happen!!