'World-class' Mustafizur is unplayable for his variations, says Sunrisers captain Warner

Soft-spoken Mustafizur Rahman is letting his bowling do the talking while his captain David Warner is doing that with the bat for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League.

The duo has formed a formidable partnership to lead the team from both fronts to launch them on a three-match winning streak.

The 20-year-old bowling sensation from Bangladesh took the centrestage in the five-wicket win over Kings XI Punjab on Saturday when he embarrassed the batsmen with 17 dot balls to return 2 for 9 in 4 overs – the most economical spell to date in this edition of IPL.

In one of the shortest match presentation speeches in the game, Mustafizur could only say, "Thank you everyone. It was a good match and I hope everyone enjoyed it."

Mustafizur's charm has overshadowed his struggle with English.

His Australian skipper Warner aptly said, "He is a world-class bowler. He is very nervous right now. He can't speak English that much. He always tells me 'bowling no problem, but batting and talking problem'."

But Warner has his own way of deciphering where 'Fizz', as he is fondly called, wants his fielders. The Aussie simply lets the youngster take charge of it.

"He is bowling very well at the moment and sometimes it is quite hard to talk to him about fielding placements but I let him do that. That is the quality in him," IPLT20.com quoted Warner as saying.

"When you are on the field and observing him, you know that he is someone who knows what he has got to do. He sets his fields himself. If I disagree with one of the field placements, he understands it on the field and it becomes pretty easy to communicate.

"I had faced Fizz only for a couple of balls in the T20 World Cup and then just faced two balls from him at the nets. He bowled a bouncer and a slower ball. The first one almost hit me in the head and the second one I didn’t get bat on."

Fellow Hyderabad pacer Moises Henriques thinks facing Mustafizur is all about focus and concentration. But his variations keep the batsmen guessing all the time.

"You do get used to his variations a little bit while playing him at the nets but you still have to be prepared for anything that comes your way and hit it," Henriques said. 

The dismissal of Andre Russell in the match against Kolkata Knight Riders was the outcome of a lapse of concentration.

In the death overs, Mustafizur unleashed a scorching yorker to uproot the stumps and leave the Jamaican, who tried to dig it out of the block hole, on the floor.

"As a batsman you can’t just sit there waiting for the slower ball because his fast one is still quick as we saw him bowling that quick yorker to Andre Russell. You’ve got to be watching really hard.

"He is not someone who is just slow either. With some bowlers you can wait for their slower balls and then react to their quicker one which might not be as quick. But, Mustafizur is sharp with both and the batsman will have to watch hard." Henriques added.

His variations include stock seam deliveries, slowers and cutters. The slowers clock either around 125kmph or at 110 kmph while he can also bowl 140kmph yorkers.

To complicate matters further, Mustafizur sometimes bowls stock ball keeping the seam upright while mostly opting for a scrambled seam all the time disguising his variations before release.

"I think it is his nature of changing deliveries that makes him unplayable,” Warner added.

"He says that he is much more comfortable against right-handers but it is while bowling to the left-handers that he senses to use his mind and the need to adapt a lot more to deliver what he thinks is best."

The captain now understands better than before when to bring Mustafizur in, at times giving him short bursts of two overs between overs 6 and 15 and then again at the death including one of the final two.

"It has been easy for me to use him like that. I try and keep him for the back end. If I feel I need wickets up early then I will use him by giving two overs at the front," Warner said.

Having suffered back-to-back defeats in the first two games, Hyderabad recovered with three wins on the bounce to stay in contention for a top-four spot.

Mustafizur has seven wickets in five matches, one behind Sunrisers' top wicket-taker Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

Mumbai Indians pacer Mitchell McClenaghan is at the top of the pole with nine wickets in six matches.