All posts tagged: Bowler

How Bhuvneshwar Kumar became the bowler no one can read | Cricket News

How Bhuvneshwar Kumar became the bowler no one can read | Cricket News

Published by Webster

Sachin Tendulkar had been watching carefully. Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s seam, he noticed, was no longer pointing anywhere in particular. Not towards slip for the outswinger, not towards leg slip for the inswinger. When the ball landed, it could go either way. The batsman’s only information arrived after the ball had already moved. “He’s right,” Bhuvneshwar says, when asked about Sachin. “And who can observe better than him?” This is June 2026. Sachin has just been analysing Bhuvneshwar’s wobble seam on social media. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 15 years old, has just broken Sachin’s 36-year record as the youngest player selected for the Indian senior team, after finishing IPL 2026 as its highest run-scorer. The boy Bhuvneshwar bowled with a knuckleball in 2025 is now the most discussed cricketer in the world. And here is Bhuvneshwar, 36, the only man to win consecutive IPL Purple Caps. ***The truth, as best as Bhuvneshwar can reconstruct it, begins somewhere around the age of 14 or 15, with a bowling action that went wrong. He had come to the game late, by …

Jofra Archer has ‘no interest in playing Test cricket’, ECB blasted for ‘ludicrous’ handling of star fast bowler

Jofra Archer has ‘no interest in playing Test cricket’, ECB blasted for ‘ludicrous’ handling of star fast bowler

Published by Parlour News

One of the key talking points during the IPL, particularly from an English perspective, was the extended spells spent in India by two Test regulars in Jofra Archer and Jacob Bethell. While Bethell was questioned over spending his time on the RCB bench instead of participating in the County Championship, Archer faced criticism over his extended participation given his history with injuries and workload concerns. Jofra Archer was with RR for the entirety of the IPL season, causing criticism. (AP Photo) Right on the eve of England’s summer Test series against New Zealand, Archer was put on blast again – as was the England & Wales Cricket Board, who were criticised by Simon Doull for being careless with the handling of Archer in recent months. “It’s ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. How are you paying this guy up to a million pound a year and he’s not available for your first Test match? It’s absolutely ludicrous,” Doull lambasted the ECB on Sky Sports, following the confirmation that Archer would not participate in the opening Test of the …

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s mantra is ‘I don’t give a damn about any bowler’: Dhruv Jurel

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s mantra is ‘I don’t give a damn about any bowler’: Dhruv Jurel

Published by Webster

2 min readUpdated: May 28, 2026 05:00 PM IST Vaibhav Sooryavanshi may have caught the imagination of the cricketing world with his exploits this season in the 2026 IPL but the secret to his success lies in the simplicity of his approach, according to his Rajasthan Royals teammate Dhruv Jurel. Jurel had himself played an impressive knock against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator on Wednesday – a 21-ball 50, but he and almost every player who took the field was overshadowed by Sooryavanshi’s record-breaking knock. The 15-year-old smashed 97 in 29 balls and over the course of the innings, he broke Chris Gayle’s record for most sixes in an IPL season. He also fell just three runs short of Gayle’s record for fastest IPL century. “The best thing about Vaibhav that I have noticed is that he doesn’t plan anything,” Dhruv Jurel said at the post-match press conference. “Because he practices a lot and he always backs himself. That’s what he does every time he goes out and plays. The best thing about him is …

‘He’s a big reason why we’ve been winning’ — Eshan Malinga, the one bowler who didn’t bleed | Cricket News

‘He’s a big reason why we’ve been winning’ — Eshan Malinga, the one bowler who didn’t bleed | Cricket News

Published by Webster

4 min readUpdated: Apr 30, 2026 08:05 AM IST In a game where the bat ruled so completely that a 243 chase was completed with eight balls to spare, one bowling figure stood apart: Eshan Malinga, 4-0-29-1. Economy 7.20. In this carnage, that is not a statistic. It is a different discipline entirely. Between them, Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad scored 492 runs on Tuesday night. MI posted 243. SRH chased it down in 18.4 overs. Bowlers from both sides bled — Bumrah 54 in four overs for MI, Boult 41, Ghazanfar 51. For SRH, Praful Hinge went for 54, Harsh Dubey 50 in three, Nitish Kumar Reddy 31 in two. Malinga stood apart. He came on in the third over with MI already 37 without loss. He started with the off-cutter on leg-stump — Rickelton pushed it back. Then the slower ball outside leg, seeing Rickelton move away, beating the inside edge. The over cost six. In a game where overs were going for 15 and 16, six was almost an act of defiance. …

Can Akash Madhwal, the first bowler to snare a five-for in IPL play-offs, revive CSK? | Cricket News

Can Akash Madhwal, the first bowler to snare a five-for in IPL play-offs, revive CSK? | Cricket News

Published by Webster

3 min readNew DelhiApr 23, 2026 05:48 PM IST For the fourth season in a row, Uttarakhand seamer Akash Madhwal will find himself playing in the IPL. He sparkled in his debut season, snaring 14 wickets in eight games, five of them coming in a play-off against LSG in 2023, for Mumbai Indians. But a modest 2024 edition saw him being let off. Although Rajasthan Royals grabbed him, he failed to make a significant impact to be retained. Now CSK have drafted him to revive their flailing bowling and season. His journey from Uttarakhand Roorkee is dreamy. Until he was 24, he had never bowled with a cricket ball, confining his tricks to the tennis-ball circuit. Upon his friends’ insistence, he randomly underwent trials and the Uttarakhand state team’s coaches were pleased. “When he came for the trials in 2019. We all were very impressed. He is skiddy and quick with a smooth action. There was an X-factor in him. Wasim (Jaffer) bhai roped him in straight away,” coach Manish Jha had told this newspaper. …

IPL: How Eshan Malinga became Sunrisers’ most dangerous bowler | Cricket News

IPL: How Eshan Malinga became Sunrisers’ most dangerous bowler | Cricket News

Published by Parlour News

Roshan Abeysinghe didn’t need much. Just a short video on a phone. In it, a 20-year-old bowled to three sticks on dry land. Lean figure. Rhythmic run-up. No pitch, no opposition, no gallery. And no shoes worth the name — what covered his feet was broken in ways shoes shouldn’t be. The city was Ratnapura. The land of rubies and sapphires. The boy’s name was Eshan Malinga. Chamila Gamage, a renowned fast bowling coach in Sri Lanka, had stumbled on him by chance. There was no club. No team. Just the boy and the stumps and that run-up. Gamage sent the video to Abeysinghe with a simple request: give him a game at Ragama Cricket Club. “He was bowling with a broken pair of shoes,” Abeysinghe says. He is the president of Ragama CC and a respected voice in Sri Lanka cricket. He had watched the video once. That was enough. Eshan had, by then, already announced himself in a small way. A private initiative had gone looking for the fastest bowler on the island, …

RCB fast bowler Josh Hazlewood is second only to Jasprit Bumrah in mastering the T20 format | Cricket News

RCB fast bowler Josh Hazlewood is second only to Jasprit Bumrah in mastering the T20 format | Cricket News

Published by Webster

4 min readApr 15, 2026 09:42 PM IST The ideal T20 bowler may not be the quickest or possess bewildering excesses of variations. He may just be taller, cleverer and more accurate than most. Like Josh Hazlewood is. For much of his career, the prime years in his twenties, he was misconstrued as a T20 outlier, playing only three games in 2,161 days for his country and repeatedly getting snubbed in auctions. At 35, he is arguably amongst the best fast bowlers in the format, almost equal to Jasprit Bumrah. When RCB acquired him in 2022 (for a not-so-unearthly 7.5 million USD), no one imagined he would be as influential as he would turn out to be. The shorter boundaries of the M Chinnaswamy, his home ground, rang sirens of peril; the batting-friendliness of the surface made the choice seemed counterintuitive. Besides, he didn’t fit the post-modern T20 bowler’s mould. He was not super quick, he does not swing or seam the ball appreciably like his Australian teammate Mitchell Starc. He cannot wield an album …

‘Not even one bowler who can guarantee four overs’

‘Not even one bowler who can guarantee four overs’

Published by Webster

3 min readApr 3, 2026 01:11 PM IST After Kolkata Knight Riders conceded a second 200-plus score in back-to-back IPL 2026 defeats at the start of their campaign, India spin legend R Ashwin made a scathing assessment of the team’s bowling weaknesses. Opting to bowl first at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Thursday, Ajinkya Rahane’s men ended up conceding a whopping 226-run total to SRH. Led by the brutal Powerplay onslaught from Travis Head and Ishan Kishan, none of the KKR bowlers were spared. With Heinrich Klaasen backing up the openers’ attack with a half-century, KKR were left reeling in a tall pursuit, eventually losing by 65 runs. Ashwin observed that KKR’s bowling department is facing major issues with no bowler looking secure and stable to run through a four-over spell. Of the four bowlers who bowled as many overs on Thursday night, veteran Sunil Narine was the most economical even as he conceded nearly 10 runs per over. ALSO READ | Travishek come to the party for Sunrisers, while KKR batters implode in another …

Former India bowler wants Aussie all-rounder to be dropped from KKR playing XI

Former India bowler wants Aussie all-rounder to be dropped from KKR playing XI

Published by Webster

2 min readUpdated: Apr 3, 2026 11:27 AM IST Former India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh has observed that Kolkata Knight Riders’ faith in their record signing Cameron Green may be misplaced, and that the Aussie all-rounder does not find room in an ideal XI after two successive defeats. After losing their opening match in Mumbai, where Green, who is currently restricted from bowling by Cricket Australia (CA) made 18 runs, the Knights lost their first match at home at the Eden Gardens on Thursday to SunRisers Hyderabad by 65 runs. Involved in a run-out mix-up with wicketkeeper-batter Angkrish Raghuvanshi, the 26-year-old Green only scored two runs during a 227-run chase against SRH. Without offering services with the ball, KKR’s Rs 25.20 crore auction buy is not worth game time, according to Harbhajan. The two-time World Cup winner said that KKR could instead bolster their batting by roping in the in-form New Zealand star Tim Seifert who lit up the recent T20 World Cup or West Indies powerhouse Rovman Powell. “I feel that Cameron Green doesn’t fit …

SRH skipper Pat Cummins explains why T20 format’s slam-bang nature is liberating as a bowler | Ipl News

SRH skipper Pat Cummins explains why T20 format’s slam-bang nature is liberating as a bowler | Ipl News

Published by Webster

3 min readMar 26, 2026 03:56 PM IST Over the last few years as team totals of 200+ runs have become more commonplace in T20 cricket, the balance of the game has tipped in favour of batters. This contrast between bat and ball is also very stark in the Indian Premier League (IPL) where last season Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) showed the devastation their batting order can wreak with multiple heavy-hitters like Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Heinrich Klaasen and Ishan Kishan in their ranks. But for Pat Cummins, the charge of T20 cricket towards being a batsman’s game has had a liberating effect. “You just have to reset your expectations (as a bowler and as a captain). Going for eight runs an over used to be considered quite high. Now, if you bowl at the start and the end of the innings and you only go for 11 runs an over, that can be match-winning. You just have to reset those expectations within the playing group,” Cummins said in a conversation with the Business of Sport …