Data Shorts: Prasidh's middle-overs mastery on show again

He won the Purple Cap in IPL 2025, and is leading the race in 2026 too. However, unlike the quicks who have dominated those charts in the past, Prasidh Krishna's major success has come in the middle-overs - a rather rare aspect for specialist seamers in T20s. It was expertly demonstrated again in Lucknow on Sunday, setting it up for Gujarat Titans' of the season.

LSG were well placed at 60/2 after six overs with Aiden Markram at his fluent best, before Prasidh's decisive intervention. The tall quick stuck to his natural hard lengths with his introduction in the seventh over. Markram got two fours away, but was caught while attempting a third one via a mistimed pull. Another bumper in the next over accounted for Ayush Badoni, and Rashid Khan's accuracy from the other end contributed in denting the hosts' progress. LSG managed just 50/3 in the middle-overs at 5.55 runs per over, with 29 dots (53.7%), and even some late lower-order hitting wasn't enough to help them post a par score.

Prasidh has bagged 15 wickets in the middle-overs since IPL 2025, the next best for any seamer in this phase is 10 (by Hardik Pandya). Of the 11 bowlers to have delivered at least 15 overs in this phase across these two editions, he has the best average and strike-rate, and only Jasprit Bumrah betters his economy rate (5.05), dot-ball percentage (45.9%) and boundary percentage (8.33%).

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The other interesting aspect is his split of overs across phases. GT have specifically used him as the middle-overs enforcer, much like they did with Lockie Ferguson during their victorious 2022 campaign. Ferguson bowled half his overs in the middle phase that season and managed just three wickets, but his control enabled Rashid to do the damage from the other end.

Prasidh, on the contrary, has been striking regularly, his scalps in Overs 7-15 for GT including the likes of Shreyas Iyer, Nicholas Pooran, Marcus Stoinis, Shashank Singh, Riyan Parag and Ayush Badoni among middle-order batters, or top-order batters who were set at the time of their dismissals: Markram (twice), Sanju Samson, Rishabh Pant, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan, Karun Nair, Tilak Varma and Patthum Nissanka.

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*min. 30 overs bowled

His methodology on Sunday was mirrored , all his four wickets coming via the hard lengths. It was a ploy that worked for the GT attack as a whole, as they collectively returned 5/44 off the 46 balls pitched back-of-a-length or shorter.

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*excluding extras

LSG quicks, meanwhile, delivered 33 deliveries at a good length, which worked for them in their first three games, especially with the new ball, but cost 57 runs on Friday at an ER of 10.36. They just pitched 22 deliveries shorter, less than half to GT's 46, and it was one of those that helped them end an 84-run stand between Shubman Gill and Jos Buttler. It was all too late to test