Naman Dhir and the 52 balls behind a bowling reputation

The view settling around India's T20 side is that Naman Dhir has grown into a bowler worth having: perhaps short of a full four overs every night, but useful on the right surface, with a right-hander's runs lower down thrown in. Across 41 T20 matches he has bowled 52 balls and taken no wickets.

Fifty-two balls is a thin body of work on which to hang a job title.

The bowler Mumbai Indians never called on

The kinder reading is that the growth is recent, and there is a trace of it. Over the last two years his economy is 5.25, against 8.01 for all bowlers in men's T20s in that time, a figure any front-line bowler would frame and hang in the hall. It rests on four overs. That is one bowler's work for a single evening, spread across two years, and in his last ten matches for Mumbai Indians, a run through April and May that ended against Rajasthan Royals, Dhir did not bowl a ball.

A franchise with a fifth bowler it trusted would have thrown him the ball at least once in ten matches.

The runs are the real case

The other half of the argument stands up without help. Over the last two years Dhir has scored at a strike rate of 161, against 130.1 for top-seven batters in men's T20s. That same run through April and May brought half-centuries against Punjab Kings and Chennai Super Kings before it tailed off with three single-figure scores, the kind of ending a hitter at that tempo will always have in him. A right-hander who scores that quickly lower down earns a place on the batting alone.

What Friday should settle

India sit top of our men's T20 team ratings, about 40 runs a match better than an average side. Our forecast gives them a 73% chance of beating West Indies in the second T20I on Friday, and a side with that much in hand can afford to find out what it has. Dhir should get two overs at the JSCA International Stadium Complex whatever the pitch offers. Until he has bowled a good deal more than 52 balls, he is a batter, and India's fifth bowler has to come from somewhere else.