One factor that clearly stood out in the 2019 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was that experience plays a big part during pressure situations and it was demonstrated in no uncertain manner than in the final at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad last Sunday where Sri Lanka’s best one-day bowler Lasith Malinga turned from zero to hero by bowling Mumbai Indians to a nerve-wracking one-run last ball win over Chennai Super Kings.
Leading upto the final over Malinga had hardly contributed anything towards a Mumbai Indian victory having dropped Shane Watson at 31 at square leg and conceding 20 runs off his third over so that at the end of the 16th over Chennai required 42 off 24 balls with Watson blazing away.
When the final over arrived Chennai required 9 off six balls and were at that stage the favourites to win. Rohit Sharma the Mumbai skipper had a tough choice to make. Whom should he toss the ball to for the final over? Sharma was caught between handing the ball to Hardik Pandya and Malinga.
“I was thinking of it, but again, I wanted to back somebody who's been in that situation before and done it for us, and Mali has been in that situation so many times, and he's done it. It was not so difficult,” said Sharma.
“Malinga, after going for so many runs in that third over, [to come back and win it in the final over] that's what champions do, actually. He's been doing it for many years for us, and I had a lot of confidence in him, and he was confident as well, whatever target he had [to defend], he could do it,” he said.
Malinga may have slowed down in pace with age (he is 35) but had plenty of tricks up his sleeve. With two required off the final ball Malinga did the trick for Mumbai with a slow yorker on middle stump that trapped Chennai batsman Sharad Thakur plumb in front to set off wild celebrations on the field.
In 2018 when Malinga went unsold in the IPL auction and Mumbai Indians could only offer him a position as a bowling mentor it seemed the end of the road for one of the most celebrated fast bowlers in one-day cricket. His pace had dropped and so was the deadly yorker bowled at 140kph plus that brought him a harvest of wickets. Multiple injuries also kept him out of the international scene. Age and fitness issues, could have easily defeated his confidence.
But Malinga managed to improvise on his bowling to be still be around and be picked for Mumbai Indians for the 2019 IPL and also a place in the Sri Lanka team for the upcoming World Cup in England. He has developed slower variations particularly the offcutter that kicks up at the batsmen and fetched him seven of the 16 wickets he picked up for Mumbai Indians in the 2019 IPL.
"We told him it's about time he tries it in a game. That's a thing in modern-day cricket, even though you have been a great, you still have to find new ways of creating things. It was nice to see him opening up for that idea and getting rewards," said Mahela Jayawardene, Malinga’s former Sri Lanka captain and coach of Mumbai Indians.
After Malinga had won Mumbai Indians a fourth IPL title for an unprecedented fourth time, Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar, an advisor to the Mumbai team said: “Dhoni's run-out was a ‘key moment. But I thought Malinga finished the game out beautifully."
Team mate Kieron Pollard said: “My aim was to stay till the end, I missed a couple of deliveries but in the end, these two guys [Jasprit Bumrah and Lasith Malinga] bowled brilliantly, taking the game away from CSK. Bumrah in the second-to-last over and then the legend himself finishing it off for us.”
The way he played for Mumbai Indians showed that Malinga was on top of his game. What is needed is for him to transform that form to the World Cup and help his team turn things around and hit a winning streak in one-day cricket which they have not done for a very long time.
Failure to do so will only revive uncalled for criticism that he performs only where there is money is and not for his country. Malinga has endured such criticism in the past and to prove how committed he is this time, in April he took 10 wickets for 83 runs across formats in less than 12 hours. After helping Mumbai beat Chennai at Mumbai with three vital wickets he turned out for Galle (of which he was captain) against Kandy to grab a career best 7 for 49 in the Super Provincial one-day match played at Pallekele.
Apart from Malinga’s exploits in the IPL final, another veteran player who grabbed the limelight was South Africa’s 36-year-old leg-spinner Imran Thahir who won the Purple Cap with the largest haul of wickets in the 2019 IPL with 26 wickets to help Chennai reach the final. Like Malinga, Thahir is also a member of the South African World Cup squad and expected to play a key role in helping his country to lay their hands on the coveted trophy that has eluded their grasp since their re-entry to international cricket in 1992.
What men like Malinga and Thahir have shown is that there is no substitute for age, experience and class. Class is permanent and form temporary.
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