CHENNAI: Royal Challengers Bengaluru pacer Lauren Bell has been one of their lynchpins in the road to Thursday's final. She has the most number of dot balls this season (116) and boasts an economy rate of 5.63 in the 32 overs she has bowled. Her average and strike rate? A stupendous 15 and 16, respectively. Her captain Smriti Mandhana had joked on how Bell would get the plants back home, referring to the league's title sponsor's initiative of planting 500 trees for every dot ball.
However, it was Bell's outswinger that caught Mandhana's attention during one of the matches against UP Warriorz. Bowling to Harleen Deol, a length ball on middle and leg, moved away missing the stumps by a whisker. Richa Ghosh, initially moved towards left before jumping in opposite direction to stop the ball. That delivery sparked something new in her, which was visibly seen in the smile in her face.
Known for her "lethal in-swinging" ability — as described by RCB bowling coach and former England pacer Anya Shrubsole — Bell explained the work she did to achieve her outswing, which involved change in action. After her maiden Ashes series in 2023, she worked with the then England head coach Jon Lewis and bowling coach Matt Mason on her bowling action. "We just chatted about how I could progress as a bowler. My action didn't provide the most pace and bounce that I could get out of my physicality. So I just tinkered with my action a bit and tried to get a bit more upright. And in doing so, it led to changing the way I swung the ball," she said in a virtual interaction days before final. "Hopefully in time, I'll be able to do both (inswing & outswing) again. And it's really exciting. The main reason (change in action) was to try and get a bit more pace, a bit more bounce, and I guess have an action that was a bit safer," she added.
With that change in action, Bell felt that she could get back the pace she once had as well as retain the in-swinger. "I guess as a fast bowler, you always want to bowl as quick as you can. As I get stronger, and as my action gets more repeatable, hopefully I'll keep getting quicker. But my main strengths are my skill and the movement I get and my bounce. But, I want to keep getting quicker and definitely in-swinger hasn't gone anywhere. I want to have my best ball nailed on and get consistency and then push on from there," she explained.
She has previously played in these conditions in last year's ODI World Cup, which have been slow and have assisted spinners. Bell said that the movement she got was "actually interesting." "I was even speaking to my coach about this because at the World Cup and I didn't get loads of swing. Definitely not as much as I'm getting now in January. I'm not 100% sure the conditions between where I was playing at the World Cup and here (in Navi Mumbai & Vadodara), but the conditions have aided me in such a way that I've got movement," she added.
