IPL 2026: Rabada must rediscover yorker to succeed in death over bowling, opines Rayudu
New Delhi, April 1 (IANS) Former India batter Ambati Rayudu believes Kagiso Rabada must rediscover his skill of bowling the yorker in order to regain effectiveness of bowling in the death overs in IPL 2026.
Rabada, who won the purple cap in IPL 2020, has struggled in recent seasons – taking only 20 wickets in 21 matches in the last three editions. He began this season with figures of 1-34 in three overs for Gujarat Titans, who lost to Punjab Kings by three wickets in New Chandigarh.
“I think one thing we have noticed over the years about Rabada, you know, as you Dale Steyn) also used to bowl that cross-seam sort of an outswinger, a baseball sort of a thing, and he used to bowl a very good yorker early on when he was bowling seam-up.”
“But has he started bowling too much of that cross-seam? He lost his yorker. I think that’s the reason why we are seeing him not bowl so well in the death. But initially, he used to bowl really well in the death when he just started. Maybe that’s something that he can get back into his game,” said Rayudu on ESPNCricinfo.
Steyn, the former South Africa pacer, felt saying Rabada was ‘searching a little bit’ for wickets and had ‘kind of lost that yorker a little bit’ in recent years. He also compared Rabada’s trajectory with Marco Jansen, who returned with figures of 1-20 for PBKS in the same game.
“He had fantastic yorker and then there was a season or period where the South African bowling line-up kind of went back of a length and crossed the seam, and I think that’s where he kind of lost that yorker a little bit, whereas Marco doesn’t bowl a lot of yorkers, he uses a lot more variations.”
“KG has been searching for that yorker and I think he’s just missed it a little bit. He’s missed low full-tosses and he’s been hit out of the ground. Whereas Marco has used that length, his height, the odd yorker every now and then.
“So KG is searching a little bit and Marco has kind of figured it out and you can tell by, what is it, ten balls per wicket versus 71 (in the death overs since the start of IPL 2025)? One guy searching the other one, he knows exactly what he wants to do,” he added.
–IANS
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