Smartness over skill. These three words define Krunal Pandya. The all-rounder doesn’t have variations like R Sai Kishore, another left-arm orthodox spinner like him. He doesn’t spin the ball much. He doesn’t set batters up like traditional finger spinners. But what he does have is a brain. In his own limitations, Krunal has always found success.
Krunal Pandya, a witty spinner
Be it speed variations or bowling bouncers, the left-arm spinner finds a way through. Krunal is used to excelling on batting wickets. He bowled fast on tight lines. Knows which batters can’t play balls outside off, whom to cramp, and against whom he can pitch it up.
But this time for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), he’s done the trick on a pitch that aided spinners. The Mullanpur surface has seen a few big totals. And then one 111 vs 95 run match as well. The pitch for the Punjab Kings (PBKS) vs RCB game was somewhere in between.
PBKS openers in his back pocket
It was spinning a touch, but what was helping the spinners was the slowness of the surface. The bounce wasn’t that high either. So Krunal bowled accordingly. As mentioned above, he knows which batters go to chase the ball. So he lured Priyansh Arya for a slog, and the opener sliced it up in the air.
He bowled slowly to Shreya Iyer to dupe him, but the PBKS captain escaped. And then against Prabhsimran Singh, he bowled it flat and fast at the stumps. He came charging and hit it straight to Tim David at long on. This is Krunal’s bread and butter. And on a surface that aided him just a bit, he made PBKS batters dance to his tunes.
“When the fast bowlers bowled, pace on deliveries was easier. It was a slow wicket. When you are on the slower side, it was difficult to hit. Assessing conditions when you are on the field helps when you are bowling,” Krunal said after the first innings.
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