IPL 2022: How good has Glenn Maxwell been with the ball and other burning questions from RCB vs GT clash – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Virat Kohli firing RCB to a win looked rather unlikely this season, but rolling the clock back to his best days, Kohli stood tall in a run chase of 170, pumping himself up along the way, as RCB kept their chances alive in the tournament.

From a game that RCB dominated from the word go, here are a few burning questions.

How good has Glenn Maxwell been with the ball?

We know the impact Glenn Maxwell can make with the bat, but his all-round value often goes under the radar. This season with the ball, Maxwell has taken six wickets, which isn’t too many, but his economy rate of 7.05 is impressive in comparison to other spinners in the league.

Glenn Maxwell has been highly effective in powerplay overs for RCB. Image: Sportzpics

This is after bowling a bulk of his overs in the powerplay. In the nine overs he has bowled inside the first six overs, Maxwell has three wickets at an economy rate of 6.22. Among spinners, this is the second-best economy rate in the powerplay after Ravichandran Ashwin’s 6.18. In fact, he is one of the only four spinners to bowl more than 50 balls in the powerplay this IPL.

With RCB’s powerplay bowling a concern this year after Mohammed Siraj’s underwhelming show, Maxwell stepped in quite effectively to give RCB a good cushion with his steady returns.

Why Rashid Khan’s high-impact cameos are perfect

Rashid Khan has played three high-impact knocks in the IPL this season now — 40 (21) against CSK, 31* (11) against SRH and 19* (6) against RCB last night. Notably, these are the only three innings where he has batted more than two balls this season. On two other occasions, he was dismissed inside the first two balls and twice he remained unbeaten having faced just one ball.

In plain terms, he has succeeded thrice and failed twice with the bat with the other two not having enough sample size to judge. For a lower-order batter that’s pretty good. His strike rate of 206.82 is exceptional and makes him a handy batter to have down the order.

Rashid has specialised in playing these cameos in other leagues — in the 2022 edition of the PSL, for instance, Rashid smashed 15* (8), 22* (8) and 17* (4) in three of the five innings he batted. In The Hundred, Rashid smashed 25 (12) and 16 (6) in two of the five innings. He has shown his penchant for such knocks in the IPL too, but it has never come with as much consistency as it has this season.

Why RCB should persist with Maxwell at No.3 if they get to the playoffs

Maxwell walked out to smash an unbeaten 40 off just 18 balls as RCB chased down the target of 170. In a game where RCB wanted to boost their NRR, Maxwell’s high-speed knock was pretty crucial, but he had the platform laid out for him. This hasn’t always been the case this year, especially with Maxwell batting at No.4 more often than not.

With Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis at the top — both similar kind of players with similar issues against spin — RCB need a game-changer at No.3, one who can provide the impetus against spin. Maxwell at No.3 does that. With the likes of Rajat Patidar, Mahipal Lomror, Shahbaz Ahmed and Dinesh Karthik to follow, there’s more advantage than risk in playing Maxwell at No.3. It allows Maxwell the leeway to dictate games from the top too rather than walking in under pressure a bit down the order.

Is Virat Kohli actually back?

Virat Kohli made 73 off 54 balls in RCB’s win in IPL 2022. Sportzpics

A 73 off 54 balls from the top in a run chase with two sixes off Rashid Khan is something you’d associate with peak Kohli, not the current one. In a dismal season — where his average was the lowest after Kane Williamson (min. 200 runs) before last night — Kohli turned it around with a brilliant knock in a big game with all the focus on his form.

Before the game, Kohli had stressed on the need for mental rejuvenation and accepted that Ravi Shastri’s suggestion to take a break was something he “needed to consider”.

During it, though, he seemed a completely different player from what we had seen earlier in the season — pumping himself up and backing himself to fire back to form. A dropped catch and some luck along the way helped him, but so did it in 2018 in England, as he mentioned in the post-match presentation.

This was Kohli in full bloom, nailing his shots down the ground, creaming his drives and pushing himself back to form in a run chase he’d have normally completed blindfolded a few years back. It’s still early days, especially after the kind of slump he has had, to say that Kohli is well and truly back, but a knock as good as this in a virtual knockout game with all the adrenaline rush — well, that sounds like a Kohli we have grown accustomed to.

Did GT miss a trick with their bowling changes?

With Kohli and du Plessis evidently looking to attack from the word go, Gujarat Titans used Mohammed Shami, Hardik Pandya, Rashid Khan and Yash Dayal in the powerplay, but failed to go to the one match-up that could have kept a leash on the RCB duo. Since 2020 in the IPL, Kohli and du Plessis have strike rates of 100.6 and 118.02 against left-arm orthodox spinners, among the top 10 lowest in the league in this time frame with a basic filter. Kohli’s is, in fact, the second-worst after Jonny Bairstow.

Using Sai Kishore, whose powerplay abilities in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for Tamil Nadu are well established, upfront could have mitigated some of the early damage and put Kohli under more pressure. To top it off, Lockie Ferguson, the high-impact, high-pace quick, never came on to bowl until the 12th over in the innings when a bit of pace and bounce on the ball would have put pressure on a rampaging Kohli.

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