What’s holding back Indian finishers this season?
While the India top-order is brimming with talent and options, the finishers’ role is throwing up more questions than answers
Kolkata: Is Indian T20 batting as good at the backend as they are at the top? For years Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have adapted to the format while MS Dhoni, followed by Hardik Pandya have provided exhilarating finishes. With time more intent has been welded in, so much so that now we have a supply line teeming with uncapped talent. To the already explosive top-order now add the promise of Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh. But who takes over as finisher in the longer run?
Rinku Singh has been at the forefront of this debate, shuttling between No 4 for India and No 5 or 6 for Kolkata Knight Riders. Tilak Varma has done well at No 5 in the IPL but he too has been tried more often at No 3 for India. Dhruv Jurel has been tapped, along with Riyan Parag and Washington Sundar. Rahul Tewatia was in the picture for a while but with the emergence of the likes of Ashutosh Sharma and Shashank Singh, the race has intensified. This IPL should have ideally given more clarity but it seems we still have more questions than answers.
At the heart of it is the conundrum over what exactly a finisher must ideally offer—a high strike rate or the mental edge of actually finishing chases consistently. To curate the batting on those lines is the most important aspect here, something Rahul Dravid believes isn’t easy. “The performance matrix for someone batting at No.5 (or below) has to be very different,” the Rajasthan Royals head coach said in an interaction facilitated by the broadcasters recently. “If you get only 15 balls to play, how do you compare that with someone who starts the innings and gets to play 60 balls? It’s never a like-for-like comparison.”
Ironically, Dravid’s team has been stung more often than not by Indian finishers not coming good, most recently in Sunday’s game against KKR. The chase was Riyan Parag’s to finish but he stumbled once he entered the 90s. As an impact sub, Shubham Pandey was frustratingly slow before throwing caution to the wind in the last over but it was too late by then. It only adds to the narrative that maybe Indians don’t have what it takes at this level.
The overall numbers of the last three IPL seasons too suggest the same, with Rinku Singh as the only Indian featuring regularly in the list of finishers doing well either in the lower order or in the death overs, setting or chasing totals. And he hasn’t been at his best in two of those three years now. Probably hindering him more is the evolving concept of the T20 finisher. MS Dhoni used to take chases down to the wire, but over the years he preferred dropping himself as late as possible. His conversion rate of sixes hasn’t exactly dipped but to expect the same from other Indians may be unfair.
Some franchises had delegated the duty to a group of assigned finishers. Mumbai Indians had Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard and then Varma in finishing roles. Rajasthan Royals’ finishing revolved around Shimron Hetmyer, Parag and Jurel. Gujarat Titans had Hardik, as well Tewatia and David Miller at the same time. Lucknow Super Giants had started out with Marcus Stoinis, Nicholas Pooran and Deepak Hooda batting in floater roles, catering to the probability that almost always one among them would finish the game.
Interestingly, Pooran, Hetmyer, Miller alongwith Heinrich Klaasen and Tim David have all been the most consistent finishers in the last three years. Not the Indians, partly maybe because they weren’t always backed for bigger roles. Like Rinku, who has been consistently sent at No 6 because this is where he was so successful for KKR in the 2023. But he has also graduated into a more complete batter—his first-class average is 54.68 in 50 matches and List A average is 47.54 from 62 matches—who now has the ability to anchor chases. Yet—like Sunday—KKR still seem to rely more on Andre Russell, and for good reason.
So appealing is the idea of hitting 30 runs in 10-odd balls that it often begs the reasoning that whether the job description of a T20 finisher may have been signed off too prematurely. If openers are allowed to take up the first 10-15 odd balls, why can’t a finisher be sent early enough to ensure a similar transition? Go back to the 31-ball 66 by Ashutosh Sharma in Delhi Capitals’ stupendous chase of LSG’s 209/8 earlier in this IPL, where he was on 20 after playing 20 balls. The only reason Ashutosh could blast off like that was he had played enough deliveries to get a hang of the conditions. Also, why Ashutosh hasn’t been able to replicate that innings (he hasn’t faced more than 14 balls at one go since then), a gripe many Indian finishers might have.
