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

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 performance 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 this competition.

“I haven't seen a lot of good death bowling in the competition and that's why teams have been able to take advantage. Sure, surfaces 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 enough.

“It's easy to overcomplicate. 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 wide 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 things 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 of teams would take that,” he added.

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 been 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...I think it's worked excellently and they've been extremely successful,” Klusener noted.

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

Having kept LSG under pressure for the majority of the powerplay, Rajasthan’s bowlers could not maintain 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 said.