When Delhi Capitals needed two runs from two balls against Gujarat Titans (GT) earlier this week, Prasidh Krishna bowled two perfectly executed slower bouncers to deny David Miller a win for his side. Later, GT captain Shubman Gill said the slower bouncer was a better option than the yorker on that particular Delhi pitch. It was also a length that Praisdh has mastered over time.
In IPL 2025, Prasidh picked up 25 wickets; 12 of those came from short or short-of-good-length deliveries. It’s not difficult to see the reason behind it: Prasidh is not someone who moves the ball significantly. Instead, he uses his height to hit the deck hard, generating extra bounce that makes strokeplay difficult.
This season, five of his six wickets before Sunday came from the same lengths. On Sunday, against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), he spectacularly extended that trend.
The two square boundaries at the Ekana Cricket Stadium were unusually short – 60 metres and 61 metres – yet Prasidh stuck to his modus operandi. He finished with career-best T20 figures of 4 for 28, and all four wickets came off either short or short-of-good-length deliveries. More importantly, his wickets came at crucial moments, repeatedly dragging LSG back whenever their innings threatened to gain momentum.
Batting first on a mixed-soil pitch, LSG reached 60 for 2 in six overs. It was their best powerplay of the season, and Aiden Markram and Ayush Badoni looked set to build on it. But as soon as the fielding restrictions were relaxed, Gill turned to Prasidh.
While Prasidh also bowls a lot at the death, it’s the middle overs (7-16) where he has been most effective. Not only does he take wickets in this phase, but he also keeps a lid on the scoring rate. Last season, he took 11 middle-overs wickets – the joint-most among seamers alongside Hardik Pandya – while conceding just 6.51 runs per over. Among all bowlers who delivered at least five overs in this phase, only Jasprit Bumrah was more economical (4.89).
In Lucknow, Prasidh struck immediately. His third ball squared up Markram, and although the batter picked up two fours off the next two deliveries, Prasidh responded with a short-of-good-length ball outside off. Markram went for the pull but holed out to deep midwicket.
Ayush Badoni suffered the same fate, failing to nail a pull shot off the hard length in Prasidh’s next over, and found the fielder at deep midwicket.
With four wickets down inside nine overs, LSG went into recovery mode. Nicholas Pooran and Abdul Samad steadied the ship briefly, before Pooran injected some momentum with back-to-back sixes off Rashid Khan.
Just as LSG seemed to be recovering, Prasidh struck again. This time, a slower bouncer did the damage. Pooran tried to ride the bounce but could only forehand it to mid-off for an easy catch. Not just that, Prasidh gave away only one run in that over, the 15th of the innings. As a result, LSG could score only 57 for 3 in the middle phase.
It was not an easy pitch though, and a total of around 175 could have been competitive. LSG still had Mukul Choudhary in the middle, who had smashed 54 not out off 27 balls from No. 7 three days ago to give his side an improbable win over Kolkata Knight Riders. A similar innings here could have revived LSG’s chances.
After starting shakily, Choudhary began to accelerate, pulling Kagiso Rabada for a six. However, Prasidh cut his innings short with yet another slower bouncer. Choudhary went for the pull but only managed an edge to the keeper.
Despite that, LSG’s lower order scored 44 runs from the last three overs, which further highlighted the importance of Prasidh’s spell. He was easily the MVP on ESPNcricinfo’s Impact List and was named the Player of the Match.
“The pitch was challenging even for the bowlers,” he said afterwards. “If you didn’t get your line or length right, you would travel. We saw that in the powerplay – every time we missed our slot, they played quite a few good shots.”
When asked about his strategy to counter that, he said: “It’s a mixture of bowling those hard lengths, those bouncers, the offcutters. The other pacers were bowling pace-on bouncers, so I thought I could bring up the change-up, and that actually worked for us.”
And how has he mastered the slower bouncer? “A lot of practice. You need to bowl a lot of them in the nets and then feel good about it before you can bring it into the game. So yeah, it does take a lot of hard work. A lot of time, a lot of effort in the nets, a tired body and then one day you will get the fruits of it.”
It’s not just Prasidh, GT too are reaping the rewards. In both their wins so far this season, his slower bouncers have played a decisive role.
