Talking Sport: Ability to summon skill key to success in Super Over

I find super overs very exciting. I have heard it said that they are a lottery, that they celebrate mere slogging and that they are “not quite cricket”. “What next,” people have thundered in much the manner they mockingly ask if we will move to a 10-overs-a-side game. Or, a 5-overs-a-side match. “Will we have a one ball bowl out?”

I guess each of us must find in our game what we seek but the Super Over is a fascinating exhibition of how to handle pressure. Chris Morris bowled the Super Over this week for the Rajasthan Royals. He is tall, hits the deck hard, has a good slower ball and, most critically, a very decent yorker. He needed six of those and in the nets, or in a middle over, might have got at least three right. But aware of the fact that he simply had to get each one in the slot, he probably tried harder and went fuller as a result.

James Faulkner is one of the better finishers in limited overs cricket and he was up against Mitchell Johnson of the Kings XI Punjab. Just over a week earlier, he had demolished his Australian team-mate. But now he had a target and he thought he had to connect, he thought he had to run and, as we often see in sport, the pressure of the result infiltrated the mind. The calm mind is most dangerous, the turbulent mind is more frequent and more prone to failure. Faulkner’s mistake was not as much in missing the ball, that happens because the bowler is skilled too, but in following a scrambled mind that told him he must run after missing the ball.

That is what I like about the Super Over. It doesn’t only test your skill but challenges you to stay calm and give your skill the best possible chance of surfacing. It is like the footballer taking a penalty in a shootout as opposed to one in normal play. The skill on both occasions is the same but it is indecision and a scrambled mind that causes him to miss in a shootout. And so you see it isn’t only a one-over cricket match but so much more. It tests a cricketer differently, it allows another dimension to sport.

It was interesting that each of the eight players involved in the Super Over was an overseas cricketer. The decision to go with the overseas players, with both bat and ball, was taken on either side by a group that included a very senior Indian cricketer. They took a dispassionate call and picked the players most likely to win a game. But it shouldn’t surprise people that this was the case because at the auction, franchise owners look for specialist skills that they may not find in the more competitive pool of the best Indian players. The overseas players are the best from around the world and they are picked to play the big roles.

The pool of Indian fast bowlers for example, is growing but doesn’t yet have a large enough quality base. Umesh Yadav might get the ball at Kolkata Knight Riders and maybe Ashish Nehra at Chennai Super Kings, but because that is in short supply franchises invest in overseas fast bowlers. Hence the presence of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Chris Morris, Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, James Faulkner, Pat Cummins and Nathan Coulter-Nile, Trent Boult and Tim Southee. The seam bowling all-rounder is another that is rare to spot in India and so, the interest in Dwayne Bravo, Andre Russell, Angelo Mathews, Thisara Perera and Faulkner. Even Darren Sammy, Sean Abbott, Albie Morkel and David Wiese.

There is a third category that could find diminishing utility; the big-hitting opener who grabs at the match early in the contest. Brendon McCullum, David Warner, Dwayne Smith, Chris Gayle, Aaron Finch are among the best but as a more aggressive lot of younger Indian players emerges, the likes of Mayank Agarwal, Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson and maybe Deepak Hooda if he can expand his offering, that category will become relatively less attractive.
With almost any other combination of teams you would probably have seen an Indian player in the Super Over. It would have been a good examination of their ability to produce their skill under pressure. That is the key really. Far too often we look at skill rather than the ability to summon it. That is why the Super Over is so interesting to watch.