IPL 2018: Five bowling spells that went in vain

T20 is not a format for the bowlers. We seldom find them consistently returning with good figures. Until you’ve got some mystery about your bowling, it is tough to succeed on a regular basis. Even the best in the business are not always consistent and always have to keep rediscovering themselves to succeed in the format.

Bowlers keep adding various variations into their armoury to outfox the batsmen. Their variations sometimes work wonders for them and they provide some brilliant performances. However, these efforts are not always sufficient to win their teams the games. We’ve witnessed this happen this season when the batsmen let the bowlers down.

Here are the best five bowling spells that went in vain:

1. Ankit Rajpoot | 4-0-14-5 vs SRH

Seldom do we find a player from the losing team win the ‘Man of the Match’ award. But, Ankit Rajpoot in the game against SRH was so brilliant that they were forced to award him the player of the match despite being on the losing side. He bowled a mind-boggling spell only to see his team lose the game.

This was the only five-wicket haul this season. Ankit was spitting fire out at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium as he swung the ball both the ways at a brisk pace. He sent the top-four SRH batsmen queuing back to the pavilion within no time. In fact, he dismissed the leading run-scorer of the season, Kane Williamson for a duck. KXIP’s misfortunes in the field helped SRH get to 132.

It was all Punjab game for the first 33.3 overs. Then came the brilliance from SRH bowlers. As soon as they got a break, they never let any of the incoming batsmen settle. They kept picking wickets bowling KXIP out for 119 and won the game by 13 runs.