Dominating figure that intimidates batters in Test cricket, the right-arm seamer has been repeatedly struggling to exercise control in T20Is for South Africa.
So distinctive and diverse are cricket’s three versions of the international game that achieving all-format excellence has never been tougher in our sport.
With the ascent of T20, and the proliferation of billion-dollar broadcasting deals, limited-overs cricket has gone through a major batting transformation on flat pitches amidst playing regulations that aid high-scoring matches, especially in the ODIs.
Test cricket today is a unique sport of its own, establishing a platform for three different variety of cricket balls on a wide array of surfaces across conditions to make life strenuous for the batters.
The bowling era, which England put a brief halt to at the start of their home summer, has only made things more challenging, with home attacks boasting of unprecedented depth and quality on pitches specifically designed to trigger the opposition downfall.
South Africa is one country that hasn’t shy of taking maximum advantage of its home terrain. Since the beginning of 2018, visiting Test teams have a batting average of only 23.86 in rainbow nation; the home side has done only marginally better at 28.96. Of these 23 Tests, Kagiso Rabada has played 18 and averaged 21.51 for his 97 wickets, striking at a jaw-dropping 38.13 balls per wicket at his end.
Rabada has been a near unplayable prospect for each set of touring batters on surfaces that accentuate the impact of his tall stature and high release with lateral seam movement of the kind that very few can make late adjustments to.
Test cricket in South Africa is designed for fast bowlers to dominate and so they do; Rabada has only elevated his rich status among the game’s finest players through them. And since the bowler has an excellent overall record across conditions, one can’t accuse him of bullying people at home. He is a red-ball beast you can’t tame: among those with a minimum of 200 Test wickets, no pacer has recorded a better SR than Rabada’s 40.2 in the 145-year history of Test cricket!
But the same beast has had negligible impact on matches when South Africa build their attack around him in T20Is. The Kagiso Rabada who is a dominating figure for Test matches melts in comparison to his own presence in the shortest format at the international stage.
Rabada has an expensive economy rate of 8.42 over 49 T20Is now with only 54 wickets to his name: in cricketing terms, neither does he provide South Africa the leash on run-scoring nor he builds inroads that would help the Proteas exercise control over proceedings.
Imposing himself on Test batters, Rabada pushes them back, scrambles their footwork with the pace and bounce before doing them in some sharp seam movement off the deck. But the tables turn drastically on the same bowler, whose lengths sit up to be hit on flat pitches in T20Is.
The just-concluded series against India reinforced the Rabada issue: same Indian batters that gave him a wicket every six overs in the Test series earlier this year smashed him for more than 8 an over at an average of 48.50 across three matches. The seamer failed to withstand the rampaging Indian batting across Thiruvananthapuram, Guwahati and Indore inside the powerplay and at the death.
During the second T20I in Assam, Pommie Mbangwa gave Rabada an effusive reception as he was about to hit the delivery stride. Mbangwa said Rabada “gets you wickets at the top” and “..bowls at the death”, implying he is a success in the two most difficult stages of an innings for South Africa.
Neither of those remarks pass the record test: Rabada has taken only 23 wickets in the field-restriction phase over 49 innings worth of bowling with the new ball, averaging 33.47; he has gone for 9.35 runs an over in the 16-20 phase, being hit for 26 fours and 22 sixes. That South Africa still entrust him to do the job in these phases makes Kagiso Rabada a seldom-acknowledged struggler; an unspoken T20I failure.
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The only time Rabada looked in control against India was in Kerala, where a rare seam-friendly deck offered him movement from the back-off length area. The pacer had a four-over output of 1/16 that day, posing an incisive threat to the Indian top order before Suryakumar Yadav unleashed his pressure-shifting abilities in a small chase. The very next game, Rabada was smashed for 0/57 on a flat wicket.
The T20I series against India summed up Kagiso Rabada’s career: the pacer delivers what is deemed a sit-up length for the batters with a white Kookaburra that offers minimal, if any, movement in the air and off the deck. Rabada isn’t a natural swing bowler, he depends on the seam extracted off the deck. But on flat pitches, with no lateral movement, it’s a ploy that modern-day batters can unleash their downswing to in the powerplay stages.
At the death, Rabada has a high-risk inclination with the yorker, which if executed well is his safest bet against the batters but also one that leaves him vulnerable to be taken for plenty. The highlight of Rabada’s IPL career in the end-overs stage came banking on that yorker against a dangerous Andre Russell at Kotla. That remains, however, an unrepeated occurrence against even lesser hitters.
From the beginning of IPL 2020, Rabada has had a death-overs ER of 9.38 across 38 innings, with an alarming 32 fours and 24 sixes hit off his bowling. He has conceded 56 fours and 33 sixes in his IPL career at the death, going for 9.45 in the end-overs phase over 55 innings. Why, his IPL stocks have dwindled over time when the pacer should be someone teams could bank on for his hard-lengths execution.
From his five IPL seasons, Rabada has collected 99 wickets in just 63 matches but those have cost his teams an overall economy of 8.26. The impact of those scalps at the death is negligible as it is, Rabada piles on his team’s troubles by going off inside the powerplay phase: only 21 of those scalps have been made during the field-restriction stage, with the bowler averaging 35.19.
That Rabada will still enter another T20 World Cup as the leader of the fast-bowling pack for South Africa reflects on the paucity of options, the mixing up of formats and the perceptions, which dictate much of the narrative in our sport.
A legend-in the making in Test cricket, Kagiso Rabada has turned into an average T20I bowler with limited range, especially on flatter pitches: a fact seldom acknowledged by those who tell his tale with the ball.
For South Africa, the key to excellence in Australia lies in accepting that their spearhead has been letting his team down in the two most critical stages of the innings, for that is when they can establish a change.
If all they do is let Rabada be, the Proteas would continue to meander around success without ever building a castle there.
Both words are interwined and critical: ambition maybe a step towards success but acceptance opens doors to excellence.
