Kagiso Rabada, once the go-to bowler at the back end of an innings, has been put on notice. After a patchy opening match for Gujarat Titans – figures of 3-0-34-1 in defeat to Punjab Kings – both Dale Steyn and Ambati Rayudu reckon the South African needs to relocate a weapon that used to come naturally.
“Just by the eye, it looks like he hasn’t kind of performed as well as one would hope he would,” Steyn said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show, moments after the game. The numbers back him up. Rabada’s economy rates since the 2023 season read 10.09, 8.86 and 11.57. Only 20 wickets in 21 outings during that stretch, too. It is a far cry from the 2020 campaign, when he owned the purple cap and still went at only 8.34 an over.
Rayudu, sitting alongside Steyn, drilled down to one specific skill. “I think one thing we have noticed over the years about Rabada, you know, as you [Steyn] also used to bowl that cross-seam sort of an outswinger, a baseball sort of a thing, and he used to bowl a very good yorker early on when he was bowling seam-up,” Rayudu said. “But has he started bowling too much of that cross-seam? He lost his yorker. I think that’s the reason why we are seeing him not bowl so well in the death. But initially, he used to bowl really well in the death when he just started. Maybe that’s something that he can get back into his game.”
Steyn nodded, adding that Rabada appears to be “searching a little bit” for wickets. The former South Africa quick drew a contrast with Marco Jansen, whose 4-0-20-1 helped Punjab over the line on Tuesday. “On the flipside of things, you’ve got Jansen, who just seems to be getting better and better,” Steyn observed. “He’s starting to play for teams that are winning more trophies – for Sunrises Eastern Cape, they’ve won the [SA20 league] three out of four years now. I feel that adds a sense of, like a belief that you can do it at the highest level. And Jansen has now certainly started to step up that where KG hasn’t had as many medals or trophies or anything like that and his performance has kind of leant in the same direction.”
The implication is clear: confidence fuels performance, and trophies feed confidence. Rabada, short on both right now, must create his own spark. Steyn still believes it can click. “I’m hoping that this is the season that he can really stand up because he is a real wicket-taker, he’s once won the purple cap so he knows what it’s about. But can he – again, we are talking about those inches – find something else in his game just to go a step ahead?” Steyn asked. “Because we’ve seen him be naughty: had his foot over the line in games that he should have closed out and things like that, where you just feel… But maybe he’s just short of a couple wickets and maybe just a bit of luck and hopefully the season could be that season for him.”
A quick dive into the database suggests the yorker really has gone missing. In 2020 Rabada sent down 34 yorkers in the league phase alone; last season he managed fewer than half that figure despite playing a similar number of overs. The switch to frequent cross-seam, presumably aimed at extracting variable bounce, has not paid off at the business end. Batters now sit deep, wait for the shorter length and carve the point or third-man fence.
Coaches will tell you the fix is basic: decide you want the toe-crusher back, rehearse it for hours, live with a few wides in the short term, trust that the payoff outweighs the risk. Whether Rabada has the bandwidth, amid a long IPL and a looming T20 World Cup, is another matter. The good news? He has been here before, and world-class fast bowlers tend to solve problems quicker than most.
For now the spotlight stays. Short run-ups, long evenings, Powerplay swings, death-over blues – the small margins that define an IPL season. Rabada has solved them before; he needs to do it again, and soon.
