Eshan Malinga bringing back art of reverse-swing

Apr.20 (Mirror Sports) - Sri Lanka has most of its premier cricketers playing in either the Indian Premier League (IPL) or Pakistan Super League (PSL) at the moment and while the likes of Kusal Mendis and Pathum Nissanka have made their mark with the bat, Eshan Malinga has made a huge impact with the ball. Malinga who unfortunately missed out on the World Cup due to injury earlier this year, has been in superb form for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) this season.

Malinga who has been among the wickets all season delivered a match winning performance in his last game against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) picking up the key wickets of their captain Ruturaj Gaikwad, Sarfaraz Khan and Mathew Short. SRH who had opted to retain the right arm quick has given him a very clear role to bowl towards the back end of the innings. According to the stats sixty percent of his deliveries have been bowled after the tenth over and it has a good reason for it.

Reverse-swing has had a major influence in the game from the late 1990s with the likes of Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram and later Zaheer Khan, Chaminda Vaas and many other fast bowlers making most of it. However, with the International Cricket Council (ICC) introducing two new balls in the ODI game, the influence of reverse swing has gone downhill. Even in the T20 matches many tend to believe that the balls are never old enough to reverse.

This has been the reason why, Eshan Malinga has become one of the talking points of the IPL at the moment. His ability to reverse the ball after 10-12 overs has been noticed by many cricket pundits. In the late 1990s and early 2000s Waqar Younis used to dominate the batsmen with those reverse swinging deliveries tailing in towards the batsmen and crushing their stumps. With Malinga however, it’s somewhat different. He may not rattle the stumps, but he has enough reverse in the deliveries to get batsmen caught in the deep midwicket region.

In a T20 game, most batsmen look to be aggressive especially after 13th or 14th over - trying to slog everything away over the fence. So, what Malinga does is reversing the ball just enough to make sure the batsmen cannot generate maximum power, and hence the ball travels towards the deep midwicket region rather than that gap between deep midwicket and long-on.

SRH captain Pat Cummins - a World Cup winner for Australia recognised the brilliance of Malinga last season and in fact said the Sri Lankan bowler was their find of the season in terms of bowling. A former student of Silvali Central College, Ratnapura - Malinga has delivered for SRH this season. The big question mark though is, has he been utilised to the maximum when he plays for Sri Lanka?