There are two types of leg-cutter bowlers in this world: Jofra Archer and everyone else.
Jofra Archer is back, back to his usual self. During the first T20I against India, he steamed in full tilt, cranking it up and rushing batters with the zip he always gets through the deck. But that’s not exactly how we can determine whether Archer is truly back.
The best way to do it is by seeing whether his leg cutters are coming out of his hands nicely. There are two types of leg-cutter bowlers in this world: Jofra Archer and everyone else. And to England’s fortunes, Archer used it effectively in this fixture.
He had just dismissed Sanju Samson with a bouncer, the third-shortest delivery he bowled in this spell (10.63 meter) at 143 kmph. So when Suryakumar Yadav came, he was right to assume Archer would try cramping him with his pace. The bowler hadn’t attempted any slower ball in his spell before either.
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But Archer is an elite operator. Off the first ball to Suryakumar, he bowled an off-pace back-of-a-length delivery, and the batter moved across and defended back to the bowler. Now Archer is wise enough to gauge what the batter was trying to do – unsettling him with unorthodox shots, and that’s what Suryakumar always does.
He prefers fancy shots behind the square early in his innings to stamp his authority and put the pressure back on the bowler. But Archer is a tough customer. He followed the slower one with a fiery pace-on short delivery at 143.6 km/h and kept the line outside the off-stump.
Suryakumar tried to whip it over the backward square leg but was beaten by pace. The bounce angle on this delivery was 9.74, showing it also climbed high on the batter.
Here is an interesting thing: The batter and bowler knew what was coming on the following ball—a similar shot. It was literally the best-versus-best contest. It was all about who executes their plans better, and that’s where Jofra showed his class.
He kept the length just a tad fuller than the previous one, still short at 8.703m, and the line remained the same – outside the off-stump. The main difference was the variation, for Archer deliberately bowled a leg cutter at 124.5 km/h – the joint-slowest delivery of his spell. In fact, he had bowled only two slower deliveries in his spell, both against Suryakumar Yadav, knowing full well that he was looking for pace on the ball.
This delivery was different from every other ball he bowled. The ball deviated a whopping -1.76 degrees after landing and swung 0.42, more than the previous two deliveries. Only two more balls bowled by Archer deviated more than this delivery, but it’s worth noting that the line was a key here.
While Suryakumar Yadav shuffled outside his off-stump, the ball always moved away from him. So, he couldn’t get inside the line of the ball and got a leading edge, getting caught by the wicketkeeper. He would have hit it if it was an off-cutter or a pace-on delivery, but Archer knew the best time to use it.
While his average speed in the game was 142.2 kmph, he reduced his pace by 17.7 kmph. Further, the ball deviated 0.96 degrees more than his average deviation. Another notable aspect was that Suryakumar was too early in his shot, playing it before the ball could even come.
That has to do with the amount of speed the ball lost after landing. On this wicket delivery, the ball lost 40.5% of its pace - more than the previous slower delivery when it lost 35.5% of its original speed. For context, the slower deliveries by pacers in this match lost 38% of its pace, depicting the speciality of Archer’s leg cutters.
Suryakumar Yadav could have tried hitting it over the wicketkeeper or third-man rather than going over the fine-leg region. He closed his bat’s face quite early. But that’s where Archer has deceived batters all these years.
Suryakumar often comes up with better plans whenever he is undone while playing such shots, and with ample action remaining this series, this battle will be intriguing to follow. The quality will remain high, irrespective of who eventually wins the contest.
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