For a bowler, Twenty20 cricket is all about courage.
When one knows that the boundaries have been shortened and that the batsmen have the license to go after bowling, bowlers need to develop a very different kind of mentality to succeed. A mentality that requires courage as a vital component.
But for Andrew Tye — this is a mentality that he has been trying to develop for a while now and at the head of his efforts is a delivery called the ‘knuckleball.’
It is bowled with his regular action but it floats up to the batsmen with an upright seam. For a batsman who hasn’t seen it before, it is hard to deal with. But for a batsman who is looking to knock it out of the park, it is almost impossible to deal with.
The results of those efforts was clearly visible in the match against the Rising Pune Supergiant on Friday night. The Gujarat Lions paceman made an unforgettable IPL debut taking 5-17, including a hat-trick to help his side win their first game of the tournament.
A majority of Tye’s deliveries against RPS were knuckleballs and the success ratio of those balls was pretty spectacular — 4-10 from his 15 slower balls. Still... knowing just how to vary the line and length of those deliveries is just as important, and that is a skill that Tye is clearly starting to master.
“It has probably taken me five-six years to get to the stage where it [the knuckle ball] is today,” Tye told iplt20.com “I have practised it hard and have practised with the right intent. Now, it is my most powerful weapon in T20 cricket.”
The hat-trick was his second of 2017 with the first coming for the Perth Scorchers in a Big Bash League match against the Brisbane Heat.
“Unlike the hat-trick I took in the Big Bash, I actually knew it was a hat-trick ball. It came out perfectly as sometimes you try too hard and it just doesn’t go right. You always go back to your run-up and think ‘What ball am I going to bowl?’ I had decided I’d bowl a slower ball before I ran in. I was able to get it on the stump and the batsman missed it,” Tye said.
The fact that Gujarat only turned to Tye in their third game shows that he was clearly not first choice, but given his performance it will be hard to dislodge him from the playing XI now.
But then Tye isn’t your typical T20 young buck, and that is why he puts a lot of thought into his game. He realises he doesn’t have time on his side and he wants to learn as much as possible... as quickly as possible. He made his state debut at a pretty advanced age of 26 and earned his first Australian Twenty20 cap in January 2016.
Four years ago, Tye was overweight and struggling to make it to the Western Australia squad but a gruelling pre-season camp changed all that.
“Every running session without a doubt there was vomit,” Tye had said. “There was 15 weeks of pre-season at least. Three running sessions a week. So at least 45 vomits. I was comfortably 40-50 metres behind the pack in every single run that we did. I just kept pushing myself trying to catch them. Eventually the lactic acid would make me throw up.”
But that is exactly the kind of effort that stands him in good stead when the going gets tough.
It’s still early days but for Gujarat, who were struggling to find wicket-taking bowlers, Tye might be just the bowling hero they need.