IPL 2023: Suresh Raina Impressed With Emergence Of Tushar Deshpande, Matheesha Pathirana

In Chennai Super Kings' six-wicket victory over Mumbai Indians at Chepauk on Saturday, their fast-bowling trio of Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande and Matheesha Pathirana stepped up to give the four-time champions a rare double over the five-time winners.

While it was heartening to see Chahar pick up two wickets after missing many games due to injury, what would have gladdened Chennai's die-hard fans would have been the performances of Deshpande and Pathirana, who are slowly emerging as fast-bowling mainstays for MS Dhoni, despite the injuries in fast-bowling department in the run-up and mid-way of the competition.

Deshpande has been Chennai's leading wicket-taker with 19 scalps and wore the purple cap multiple times in the ongoing season. Though his economy rate is on the higher side, Deshpande has been able to impress the onlookers with pace, swing as well as variations upfront.

"Like, he got Green out in the last game and got Rohit out too at the Wankhede. One would see that he was bowling proper Test-match length and for doing so, one has to think within the box. He's impressed a lot and is very much into the game situations along with a great seam position," said Suresh Raina, currently an IPL expert for JioCinema, in a select virtual interaction.

Apart from the starting bursts, Deshpande has taken eight wickets in death overs this year, just behind his team-mate Pathirana's ten scalps, though his economy rate is on the higher side. But something which has caught the eye of Raina, the former India and Chennai Super Kings player, has been Deshpande's execution of yorkers.

"Tushar Deshpande has the pace, variety, swing, bounce and his biggest strength is of bowling yorkers, while executing them under pressure. One has to give kudos to his belief, self-confidence, mindset. Plus, Dhoni is using him well in middle overs, last five overs and with new ball."

"He has a very good action, bowls while coming close to the stumps and believes a lot on his yorker. All the plans he's trying to execute, everything is working out and all of the credit goes to Dwayne Bravo, who's become the bowling coach of CSK."

"In my years while playing for CSK, this is the first time I am seeing these good yorkers being bowled, all thanks to Bravo and his philosophy used to be of bluffing the batters even if he didn't get the yorkers right," he added.

It's no secret that Pathirana's stocks as a reliable death overs bowler are on a rise in IPL 2023 and his spell of 3/15, where he didn't concede a boundary, and applied brakes on Mumbai's batting in the back-end.

With precision in delivering his yorkers and slower balls, Pathirana showed how lethal he can be with his hard-to-pick slinging action and release point being lower than Sri Lanka bowling stalwart Lasith Malinga.

"I think he has been very good. He's bowling with good pace and I was fortunate enough to give him his first Man of the Match award in his life. He was happy in bowling with a different pace. We have seen Malinga in Mumbai and now we are watching one more Malinga in CSK."

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"He's the future of CSK and is very difficult to hit off him. He has a powerful yorker and slower ball, apart from having a different sling action and is very difficult to hit him on his merit, which shows he has a good future," concluded Raina.