An Oddsworth Opinion
What Arshdeep Singh would really fix at Mumbai Indians
Arshdeep Singh swung the ball so far at Auckland that Sunil Gavaskar was left imagining him with a red ball. Alongside the headlines on his four wickets in the first ODI against New Zealand came reports that Mumbai Indians and Punjab Kings were in talks over a trade.
The idea has Mumbai sending Hardik Pandya to Punjab and taking Arshdeep in return. The view doing the rounds is that a left-arm Indian seamer would fix Mumbai's bowling and give them a proper threat with the new ball.
His T20 bowling over the last two years tells a plainer story. Across every men's T20 match he has gone at 9.3 an over, against 8.19 for all bowlers in that time. His bowling average of 26.36 sits above the benchmark of 24.64 as well.
Is Arshdeep an upgrade on Hardik Pandya's bowling?
Our ratings say he is. They put Arshdeep 55th of 144 men's T20 bowlers, worth 0.92 runs a match more than an average one, and Hardik 115th, costing his side 1.86 runs a match. The scoring rates are much closer than those rankings suggest, though: Hardik has gone at 9.33 an over in the last two years, a whisker from Arshdeep.
The Auckland swing has not yet carried into Arshdeep's T20 form. In the recent series against West Indies and New Zealand his best return was 3/44, and in the very next game he went for 52 in four overs.
1.3 a match in his career
What Mumbai lose with Hardik Pandya
The trade takes one of Mumbai's better hitters out of the middle order. Our ratings have Hardik 47th of 203 T20 batters, 2.4 runs a match better than average. Over the last two years he has scored at a strike rate of 155.6, against 132.9 for top-seven batters.
Those runs do not come back in the swap. Arshdeep has averaged 7.47 with the bat over the same two years, so Mumbai would have to find a finisher from somewhere else before the bowling gain counts for much.
Does the trade solve Mumbai's bowling problem?
It helps, because our ratings rank Arshdeep well above the man leaving. Mumbai would be swapping a below-average bowler for a slightly above-average one and paying for it with Hardik's runs.
That is a modest gain bought at a heavy price. Arshdeep's T20 economy still sits above the going rate, so the lift on Hardik's bowling is small, and losing Hardik's hitting leaves Mumbai weaker overall until they find another finisher. On these figures the swap is a sideways step dressed up as a solution.