Cricket

Making Sense Of IPL's Skewed Bat Vs Ball Contest - Lance Klusener Finds Faults In Bowlers

 LSG Vs RR, IPL 2024: "Just looking at the bowling performances throughout the competition, for me, they have been quite disappointing," Lucknow Super Giants assistant coach Lance Klusener said after the team's seven-wicket defeat to Rajasthan Ro𓆏ya♔ls. "There hasn't been a lot of good bowling"

Lance Klusener speaks in dressing room, Lucknow Super Giants coach, IPL 2024, LSG Twitter Screengrab
Lance Klusener also observed that the bowlers are opting for several variations at death but t๊hey have not been using the wide yorkers enough. Photo: Screengrab (X | Lucknow Super Giants)
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Lucknow Super Giants assistant coach Lance Klusener placed the quicker evolution of batters as a reason behind the frequent tall team totals in the ongoing Indian Premier League. (As It Happened | Full Coverage)

The teams have been going past 200 and even 250 quite effortlessly in this IPL, and the former South African all-rounder opined that the modest perfﷺormance by bowlers at death overs too has helped batters to add quick runs.

“Just looking at the bowling performances throughout the competition, for me, they have been quite disappointing. There hasn't been a lot of good bowling,” Klusener told the media after LSG’s seven-wicket loss to Rajasthan Royals in Lucknow on Saturday.

“There’s been a lot of ordinary bowling and batsmen are just so good these days, 🌄they're taking advantage. Maybe the batsmen have evolved a lot quicker than the bowlers in thisౠ competition.

“I haven't seen a l꧙ot of good death bowling in the competition and that's why teams have been able to take advantage. Sure, surfa🐻ces have been flat. I haven't seen a lot of swing either,” he added.

Klusener observed that the bowlers are opting for several variations at death but they have not been using the wide yorkers ꦇenough.

“It's easy to overcomplicateꦺ. If you run in and execute even four out of six yorkers...we don't see that anymore. We don't see that skill,” he said.

“We’re going to slower balls and a whole lot of other variations. That pure death bowling of yorkers, whether it's wid𝓀e or straight, that's a skill that we don't see very often these days,” he added.

Klusener said LSG will have to start putting performances together and they cannot continue to 🃏be good in one area and bad in the other.

“We're doing a lot of good stuff but in patches, and for us to get deeper into the competition come later on in the month, we're going to have to make sure that we're putting all those little th♏ing♑s together,” he said.

“We can't just bat well and not bowl well or field. We need to make sure we put all that together. The good thing is we're in෴ a great position — we’re the master of our own destiny for now.”

“If someone had told us in the beginning of IPL (that) three quarters of the way through the competition you can still decide your own destiny, lots ꦛof teams would take that,” he a🦂dded.

Klusener confirmed that pace sensation Mayank Yadav is ready to take the field very soon.

'Zulu🌼' added that he was not a fan ✱of the impact player rule in IPL.

“Personally, I'💙m not in favour. But I think it's beeไn extremely effective. Just me personally, I like 11 on 11,” the said.

“But I think the way the entertainment has been provided, and a little bit of strategy on when and how to use it...I൩ think it's worked excellently and they've been extremely successful,” Klusener noted.

Meanwhile, Rajasthan Royals’ pace bowler Avesh Khan said the I🉐PL table-toppers need to improve on their bowling skills during overs 6 to 16.

Having kept LSG under pressure for the majority of theও powerplay, Rajasthan’s bowlers could not mai🔴ntain the pressure as KL Rahul (76) and Deepak Hooda (50) responded with a 115-run partnership for the third wicket.

“We feel that we need to show further improvement in the phase of overs 6-16 as a bowling unit. We will discuss this in our team meeting,” he saidไ.