IPL 2018: Dwayne Bravo a mentor to young Chennai Super Kings bowlers - Eric Simons

From playing some useful knocks to bowling excellent spells in the death overs, Dwayne Bravo has played a crucial role in Chennai Super Kings’ early season surge. His efforts haven’t gone unnoticed with CSK’s bowling consultant Eric Simons who praised the impact the West Indian all-rounder has had. (IPL 2018 FULL COVERAGE)

“Bravo is massively important from two perspectives. No 1, he is an incredibly experienced cricketer. We were dead and buried against Mumbai last time we played and his was one of the great T20 innings I’ve ever see, I didn’t think we are going to win it,” said Simons said before practice at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium on Friday.

“Other thing is his ability to control in those middle overs. He bowls to his field and for me it is wonderful to watch. And then the third component, which you don’t witness, is the amount of mentoring he does for our bowlers. He does lot of talking, lot of advising,” he said.

It’s almost halfway in the season and Bravo has already placed himself among the contenders for the Player of the Tournament. In six matches so far he has scored 118 runs and taken six wickets, bowling successfully at the death most of the times.

Simons also lauded Bravo’s bowling, especially his off-cutters which have gone out of fashion of late. “The thing why Bravo’s off-cutters are so good is the fact that he turns his wrist around with the ball and not over the ball so that helps ball to dip and float. The off-cutter went through a phase when it was effective but not much anymore because guys always pick it up. Using the crease is important and we have done that thing well effectively on number of matches, coming from a wide angle, not allowing power hitters any room,” said Simons.

Chennai have the second worst economy rate in the last five overs after Royal Challengers Bangalore but that doesn’t concern Simons. “We have won five out of our six games so one has to compare our averages with the opponents and not the tournament. You might play on a tricky wicket, like last night we saw 120 defended (when SRH defeated KXIP). So, it’s very dangerous to consider tournaments’ numbers to our matches’ numbers and in each case we have done enough to win and our batsmen have been able to chase it down.”