How good has James Pattinson been?

Australian fast bowler James Pattinson had big shoes to fill in when Mumbai had announced him as the replacement for Lasith Malinga, who had to opt-out of the Indian T20 League season due to personal reasons.

The veteran Sri Lankan pacer had been a vital cog of Mumbai's bowling attack throughout the last decade of the tournament and his position at the top of the wicket-taking charts in the history of the Indian T20 League is testament of the legacy he left behind.

In fact, Pattinson wasn't even expected to be one of Mumbai's first-choice seamers for this edition. Even though he was roped in as Malinga's replacement, Nathan Coulter-Nile was supposed to start ahead of him along with Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult. However, as the season kicked off, Pattinson was the one who was seen walking out to the field ahead of Coulter-Nile.

The decision to start with a bowler with no prior experience of playing in the Indian T20 League could have gone in any direction but Pattinson has delivered on the faith shown in him by the Mumbai think-tank so far.

The 30-year-old has picked up nine wickets in the six matches he has played in the tournament and that too at an excellent average of 19.88. His overall economy rate of 7.72 shows that he hasn't gone for that many runs either and that sums up how good a bowling asset he has been for Mumbai thus far, both in terms of attacking and containing the batsmen.

As visible in the distribution of his overs across different phases in the tournament, Pattinson has bowled more than 80 percent of his overs in the Powerplay and the middle-overs. And he has done an excellent job in that role.

While Pattinson hasn't been that penetrating with the new ball, having picked up only two wickets from the 60 balls he has delivered in that phase, he has shown the skills to keep things tight at least. He has gone at only 7.5 runs per over in the Powerplay, which is pretty decent considering the fielding restrictions on.

Pattinson, though, has really flourished as a middle-overs enforcer for Mumbai. He has not only recorded his least economy rate (7.33) during this phase but also picked up wickets at an excellent strike-rate of 13.5. In fact, all of his four wickets in this phase are that of big names like David Warner, Jos Buttler, Manish Pandey and Nicholas Pooran.

All these batsmen have the ability to take the game away from the opposition and Pattinson has ensured Mumbai's safety every time by sending them back to the hut.

This is not all about him though. He has really done well whenever skipper Rohit Sharma has needed him to deliver at the death. Pattinson has picked up three wickets in this phase at an interval of approximately every eight deliveries.

So these numbers show how important Pattinson has been to Mumbai's success in the tournament thus far. He has not only completed Mumbai's three-pronged pace attack, but has also ensured that his end is as sharp as that of the other two prongs.

Feature image courtesy: Twitter.com / Mumbai