CSK Bowlers '22 - Mid-Season Analysis
As a CSK fan, this season has been painful for plenty of reasons. The biggest one for a lot of people, including me, are the lack of quality bowlers, specifically Deepak Chahar. While on the outset, this might seem the biggest, I wanted to take a closer look at the numbers to back up this opinion.
To do this, I used the ball by ball data available from Cricsheet to compile the strike rate and economy for all bowlers this season and for CSK bowlers from last season. This includes matches played till APR 22nd and the first seven CSK matches from last season, as they were the ones held in India. I am looking at strike rate and economy because, in my opinion, stifling runs and taking wickets are most effective in a t20 match.
This post is somewhat limited in the sense, I am interpreting the most basic of stats. I don't have access to information such as line and lengths the bowlers have bowled so far, what amount of control they have had, match ups or the match conditions such as the pitch report or dew. This means solutions can't be proposed and is just a way of looking at how good the bowlers have been. Also, the numbers might be slightly off.
For those who don't have experience with SR and economy, these are the definitions from wiki.
Bowling strike rate is defined for a bowler as the average number of balls bowled per wicket taken. The lower the strike rate, the more effective a bowler is at taking wickets quickly.
Economy Rate is nothing but an average of runs, a bowler conceded in every over, he bowls. Lower Economy Rate is preferred.
CSK Bowlers - PowerPlay Performance
The above scatter plot includes all bowlers who have bowled more than 3 overs this season. By far, Maheesh Theekshana is the best bowler for CSK, with a SR of 13.57 and an economy of 7.69. Comparing this to other spinners, Chalal is mighty impressive, with a SR of 9.83 and an eco of 7.29. Sunil Narine being the most economical bowler (5.04) is also not surprising.
The other opening bowler, Mukesh Choudhary has a worse eco of 9.75, but SR is much better at 19. Around the same SRs are bowlers like Shami, Rabada, Yadav and Ferguson, but they are all more economical. Rabada having the worst eco of 8.54 among the 4.
The opening bowlers are still striking at a fairly decent rate, but need to work on their economy.
Both these bowlers are striking at a much better rate than CSK bowlers from previous seasons. But Deepak Chahar and Sam Curran were more economical than Mukesh. The powerplay bowling looks set as of now isn't too bad from previous seasons but can be more economical.
CSK Bowlers - Middle Overs
Jadeja has bowled the most number of overs for CSK in the middle. The issue here is that Jadeja is nowhere close to his last year's performance. His SR last year was 23.67 and had an eco of 6.65. He made it way harder to score runs. This year, though, he has a SR of 45 (picking just three wickets) and an eco of 8.18. Maybe it is the captain's curse, or just a phase. But if Jadeja is able to get back to his best, CSK will have a much smoother passage of play in the middle. This could also be a matter of toss and dew affecting his bowling.
Another thing to note is that the only bowlers who have a below 7 eco rate this season is Pretorius and Santner. This could be because they weren't starting all matches, and hence the sample size is too low. Compare this to last year, and we see Moeen and Jadeja had a below 7 eco rate and were striking much better than this year.
Middle over is where CSK used to win the matches. And this year, this is the place where they are lacking the most.
CSK Bowlers - Death Overs
Bravo is managing to bowl much better this season than last year, at least strike rate wise (12.86 vs 25). Economy is slightly worse at 9.18 vs 8.5. But 9.18 at death is still acceptable. Btw, those who haven't taken a wicket would have a SR of 0, that's an outlier. I filtered it out for other plots, but decided to keep it in the death over plot, as economy, in my opinion, is more important in death overs over SR.
The biggest difference here from last year is Takur. He bowled the most number of overs for CSK at the death and was going at an eco of 10.24. This year, there is no one to accompany Bravo. Pretorius has only bowled 6 overs, but he has an eco of 8.67. Jordan is too expensive with an eco of 13.57, but has bowled only 5.5 overs at the death. Theekshana has bowled 5 overs at an eco of 8.6. So this isn't much different from last year, expect CSK are still finding their second death bowler. They tried experimenting, which cost them a couple of games, but in the long run, Pretorius and Bravo should settle into that role.
Conclusion
CSK's bowling issues, mainly Jadeja's form with the ball and their search for the 5th bowler. Mukesh, while being expensive, is improving. If he can be more economical at the start, if Pretorius can live up to the promise shown, and Jadeja finding form, CSK should have a functional bowling unit. Okay, that's a lot of ifs, but the pitches should be tiring out in the second half and that will only help CSK's cause.
CSK never had the best bowling unit in the tournament. Their strengths lie in squeezing the opponent out in the middle overs, and right now they need to find a way to do that. They need a miracle to qualify to the playoffs this year. But they are one good bowler away from being a competitively competent bowling unit in the coming years.