Prasidh Krishna emerges as Gujarat Titans' trump card in IPL 2025

Mint

06-05-2025

There will be an extra buzz at the Wankhede on Tuesday (May 6) when Mumbai Indians (MI) take on Gujarat Titans (GT). Both teams are in a race to finish in the top two of the IPL 2025 points table, and the winner of this game will take a giant stride towards that, while the loser will see their chances diminished significantly.
The buzz around the game is about the return of Kagiso Rabada, but it is Prasidh Krishna who might be the most potent weapon for the Titans. In fact, the way Prasidh has been bowling in IPL 2025, he might even be the bowler to watch out for from both sides. That sounds like sacrilege in a game involving Jasprit Bumrah, but that's just how good Prasidh has been.
Prasidh had watched the last two years of the IPL from the sidelines, sitting out due to injury. It was not as if he was particularly missed because in the five years he had played, from 2018 to 2022, he had a middling record: an average of 34.76 and an economy of 8.92, with 49 wickets in 51 games.
Till then, in matches that Prasidh had been involved in, pace bowlers averaged 30.11 and conceded runs at 8.77 per game. This means that Prasidh was actually below par, overall. It looked like the same story might continue in IPL 2025, when Prasidh had 3-0-41-0 in his first game.
However, Prasidh had been working behind the scenes, and the results of that work would start showing up soon. Spectacularly.
It began with his second game of IPL 2025, against the very same Mumbai Indians. Prasidh bowled with pace, movement and supreme control to take 2/18 in four overs, and win the Player of the Match award.
Since that game, he hasn't gone wicketless in any subsequent match and is currently the Purple Cap holder in IPL 2025, with 19 wickets in 10 games. From taking less than a wicket per game to nearly two per match, it's been quite a remarkable turnaround.
'I was a metre or two shorter, slightly wider. So I really went back to the nets and worked on the very basics,' Prasidh had said after that first MI game. 'I'm playing T20s after a while and I needed that game, that over or a ball to get going.'
As the performances kept stacking up, Prasidh was asked if this was the best he had ever bowled in the IPL.
'Yes, I would say so,' he replied, before explaining what was working. 'My control over length has been good. All the work that we've been putting in as a team, and everybody around has been supportive enough for me to get to where I am now. I'm enjoying the way the ball is coming out of the hand.'
Control over length has been the key. In IPL 2025, Prasidh has been landing the ball on that hard length with unreal consistency. His pace, natural bounce allied to his height, and the movement he's always been able to get have ensured that batters have no respite against Prasidh. But he's also mastered variations. On pitches that grip, Prasidh is able to dial down his speed from the mid-140s to the low 130s and bowl cutters. When faced with an in-form KL Rahul, he's been able to summon the perfect yorker to get a key wicket.
'My preparation starts firstly by getting control over what I want to do,' Prasidh explained. 'Get into the nets and do exactly what I would do against somebody that I will be facing in a particular game, and from there, on game day, you look at what the pitch is like. If you're bowling second, make sure you watch every single ball of the 20 overs someone else bowls.'
Prasidh's resurgence started from the MI game. But MI themselves have also been resurgent, with six consecutive victories. However, that mighty batting line-up will be up against a bowler in red-hot form too. Since that match, Prasidh has been averaging 13.21 with an economy of 6.97, and has bowled his full quota of four overs in each of the nine games. And pace bowlers, overall, in those nine games averaged 29.84 while going at 9.48.
GT will look towards Prasidh, in his new role as the enforcer and the SOS man, to once again stop MI.
First Published: 6 May 2025, 01:13 PM IST