Sri Lankan sensation Matheesha Pathirana was lauded by Chennai Super Kings (CSK) bowling coach Dwayne Bravo for the feat that the latter had achieved, not just in this IPL season but all over in his IPL career for Chennai in all respects. As of yet, Matheesha Pathirana pulled 30 wickets in 18 matches where nine of them came from four games in this IPL season.
Almost having the same slinging action as Sri Lankan pace bowler Lasith Malinga, Bravo claimed Matheesha Pathirana as the Baby GOAT (Greatest Of All Time). Matheesha Pathirana was the pick of the bowlers against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) who took a 2 wicket haul and conceded 35 runs in his 4 over spell.
CSK now have lost 2 back to back matches that too against LSG and now all of a sudden there are chances that they might miss out on play-off berth in Tata IPL 2024. CSK are placed at 5th position on points table with 8 points from 8 matches. It won’t be wrong to say that CSK’s fragile bowling line up has been exposed and the captaincy of Ruturaj Gaikwad was also quite questionable.
Matheesha Pathirana is very special- Dwayne Bravo
IPL posted a video of Dwayne Bravo expressing his experience on coaching CSK pacers like Matheesha Pathirana, where he mentioned that:
“Pathirana is very special. I call him Baby Malinga. I also call him Baby GOAT. He is not someone you try to coach because he has a natural ability and skill”.
Bravo applauded the fact that players like Mustafizur Rahman and Tushar Deshpande made a classic impact on the Yellow team. He repeatedly alluded to the importance of not over-coaching the players and imposed on providing essentials in terms of skill and knowledge.
Dwayne Bravo on the importance of Yorkers
According to Dwayne Bravo T20 cricket is shifting in the batter’s favor, because of the bowlers’ inability to deliver the ball directly to the stump. He believes that Yorkers should be consistently delivered so that the batsman would have a hard time hitting the ball and getting used to it. He mentioned the names of two great pace bowlers, Lasith Malinga, and Jasprit Bumrah, and illuminated their willful ability to launch Yorkers.
He further stated that:
“You cannot last long without a yorker. If you look at players, who have had most of the success in T20 cricket, Lasith Malinga, Bumrah, or Pathirama, myself when I played, we had a similar plan, try to bowl as many yorkers as possible, with our variations. So what I tried to implement in the coaching sessions is each and every bowler has to bowl 12-14 yorkers in a session,”