What happened in this season of Indian Premier League (IPL) was not seen ever before in other IPLs in the past. Delhi Capitals’ Anrich Nortje gave a performance with the ball in this IPL that speedsters such as Brett Lee, Shaun Tait and Shoaib Akhtar could not do.
He bowled the fastest delivery in the IPL history on Wednesday. He bowled four deliveries at the speed of 150 km per hour in the third over of the innings. The fastest one of these deliveries was at the speed of 152.22 km per hour on which Jos Buttler smashed a four. He also bowled a delivery at the speed of 155.4 km per hour in the same over. Nortje broke the record of his compatriot Dale Steyn’s speed of 154.4 km per hour.
In this season of IPL, in all the matches played till Wednesday, the speed of 34 balls was either 150 km per hour or in excess of that. Of these, Nortje bowled such fast deliveries 16 times. Rajasthan Royals’ Jofra Archer bowled the delivery at a speed of 150 km per hour or more 15 times so far in this IPL. Mumbai Indians’ James Pattinson, Delhi Capitals’ Kagiso Rabada and KKR’s Pat Cummins bowled deliveries at such a speed one time each. The speciality of Nortje is that he maintains the speed. The yorker is a big weapon with him. He bowls such deliveries too much from the South African team.
Hailing from a small town of Port Elizabeth, Nortje will turn out to be such a big speedster was never thought of. Earlier, examples of Dale Steyn and Lungi Ngidi were given in the field of fast bowling, but both of them are not useful this time round.
Nortje’s speed attracted everyone. Two years ago, Nortje had toured India on behalf of South Africa A team when he had clinched 24 wickets. His fitness also got affected badly for this speed. He had to sometimes face muscle pull and sometimes ankle injury. However, Nortje did not get much opportunity to play cricket from his country. But IPL experience will be quite useful for him.
Like Jofra Archer got a special identity in the IPL before he joined the national team, similarly IPL has given the same identity to Nortje. He hit the headlines with his bowling experiments and tight deliveries. His slower speed also proved to be effective. The combination of three specialties like yorker, bouncer and slower makes him a big bowler.
Jasprit Bumrah is also active in these three areas of bowling. It is certain that experience of IPL will be quite beneficial to Nortje in the South African team in future.