Data Shorts: Unlucky Archer hits the deja vu button

The last time Jofra Archer wore Rajasthan Royals' pink, he won the MVP award of the season. This was back in IPL 2020 where despite his best efforts, the Royals ended as wooden spoon holders of the edition. Archer was exceptional with the new ball that season, picking ten wickets at 10.80 at an ER of 4.15 in the Powerplay while rest of the seam attack managed just four wickets between them at 121.25 and ER of 9.80. Five years down the line after his comeback, it evokes a sense of deja vu. Archer has picked six wickets at 25 apiece (ER 7.89) in IPL 2025 while rest of the pack have only a total of two wickets at 109.5 (ER 9.25) to show for. Archer was not given the opening over in Royals' season opener in Hyderabad where he ended up conceding a record 76 runs. In eight games since, he has taken the new ball and has figures of 3/53 in the first over, with a false shot % of 53.7 - better than one every second ball.

Coming into Thursday's contest, Chinnaswamy wicket had been the toughest for batters to navigate the Powerplay in IPL 2025, with 15 wickets falling at a rate of 17.46 runs/dismissal from the first three matches of the season held here. Pacers hitting hard lengths have done exceptionally well picking 13 of these 15 wickets from a length and short of good length at 12 apiece, as per data logs.

Pitch #7 was rolled out for the game against Royals and was previously used in the match against Delhi Capitals - a match where we saw the new ball lifting off from a length for the seamers, especially the taller ones like Mitchell Starc. It stayed the same in this game when the fifth legal ball of Archer's first over went above the wicketkeeper for five wides. Archer didn't pitch one ball up, the fullest being 6.59 meters on a good length from the stumps. He conceded four boundaries in his opening spell of two overs, including the five wides, of which only one came where the batter was in control. His average length on the two-paced pitch was 8.75 meters, while each of the other seamers operated in the full-length zone, fuller than six meters. Between them, they pitched up 14 balls on lengths fuller than six meters and conceded 23 runs off those. While Archer was able to induce 50% false shots with the RCB openers being in full control of just one ball across his two overs, the other three seamers managed just 16% false shots in four overs between them.

RR bowlers in Powerplay vs RCB, Match #42

Sandeep Sharma attested the same in the post-match press conference, "Obviously, the one who has more height has an advantage, but it depends on the pitch. And generally, Bangalore's pitch is not like this, but this year it is going like this, where the back of the length... whose height is more, if you hit that [length], the ball is flying. So, in both teams, there was one bowler, and that difference was seen, that on such a pitch, the height advantage remains a lot, for sure."

This is the story in a nutshell for Archer in this season of IPL. He has induced 33.3% false shots throughout the season - same as Purple Cap holder Prasidh Krishna (16 wickets) - but has only nine wickets to show for his efforts. Archer has induced the most edges from batters in IPL 2025, 25 of them, but only one of them incremented his wickets column and these 25 edges have fetched the batters 51 runs. Of the 26 bowlers to have induced at least ten outside/inside edges, Archer's average of 51 is the second worst, only behind Avesh Khan who is yet to take a wicket off his 12 edges. To bring in perspective, Josh Hazlewood has induced 22 edges of which seven resulted in a wicket for him while the similar figures for Arshdeep Singh are 18 edges and six wickets off those.

Highest false shot % in IPL 2025 (15+ overs)

Most edges induced in IPL2025

Rajasthan have now lost five on the bounce and even with wins all their remaining game will take them to a best of 14 points, which might not suffice. Archer, of all people, will be hoping his best efforts with the ball don't end up in another wooden spoon finish.