IPL’s big batting obsession

Bengaluru: By its very nature, limited-overs cricket, unlike multi-day red-ball cricket, is essentially a batters-versus-batters contest. Whichever team scores more runs ends up winning the match, irrespective of how many wickets it loses. This dynamic naturally tilts the balance in favour of batters. But never has the imbalance been as pronounced as in this edition of the Indian Premier League, where 200-plus totals have become the norm and chasing them down hardly comes as a surprise.

. Flatter pitches, deeper batting line-ups because of the Impact Player rule, and the resulting high-risk, high-reward approach have reduced bowlers to little more than bowling machines waiting to be lined up and launched over the ropes. There have been a handful of matches where pitches have been slow, low, or occasionally spicy, and batters have struggled in such conditions. By and large, however, it has been an uneven contest between bat and ball, with batters enjoying the upper hand in a set-up where favourable rules and equally pliable conditions work to their advantage.

. A look at the numbers so far this season (until the RCB-LSG game on Thursday) reveals how bowlers have been reduced to mere participants. Last season, there were 51 totals of 200 or more across the entire tournament. After the 50th game of this edition, the number already stands at 42, with more than 20 matches still to go.

. More telling, however, has been the ease with which teams have chased down 200-plus targets that were once considered insurmountable. There have already been 12 successful 200-plus chases this season, compared to just eight in the entirety of last season.

. One of the primary reasons is the Impact Player rule, which teams have become increasingly adept at exploiting since its introduction four seasons ago. In the past, scouts looked for quality all-rounders or “mystery” spinners. Today, considerable time, money, and strategy are devoted to finding a player capable of making a decisive impact. Of course, teams have to be dynamic in applying the rule depending on whether they bat or bowl first, but some players are picked specifically for this role.

. While the rule does provide teams with the option of an extra bowler, on absolute belters an additional batter effectively neutralises any bowling advantage. If totals upwards of 260 are not safe, then the contest can hardly be considered fair. The presence of an extra batter in a 20-over match is akin to giving teams a handicap. Awareness of that cushion, combined with a shift in batting philosophy, where preserving one’s wicket is increasingly viewed as outdated, encourages batters to attack from the outset. Even if a batter succeeds only 40 to 50 per cent of the time across a tournament, the approach is still deemed worthwhile.

. “Yeah, 100%,” said Devdutt Padikkal after his 27-ball 55 against Gujarat Titans when asked whether the batting firepower below him helped him stay aggressive. “We have seen what Tim (David), Romario (Shepherd) and Jitesh (Sharma) are capable of down the order and when you have that kind of firepower waiting in the wings, you have the freedom to just go out there and express yourself.”

. Given the nature of the surfaces and increasingly defensive bowling, what chance do bowlers really have of succeeding?

. Muttiah Muralitharan’s observation that even he and Shane Warne would not have been especially effective in these conditions puts the issue into perspective.

. “See, we would have turned the ball, but we would not have made a big dent,” he said while discussing the plight of spinners, particularly in this edition of the tournament. “We might have got one or two wickets maybe. They would still have scored 40 runs off us easily because the wickets are so good,” he said.

. “Shane Warne was also a freak because he could spin the ball and do wonders. But the game has changed. We can’t compare eras. The way players bat, the mentality of players, these are the things that have changed.”

. This season has also seen a diminished role for spinners, largely because pitches across most venues have offered them very little assistance in controlling batters. As a result, captains and team managements have increasingly preferred pacers.

. While spinners bowled 1,050 overs, accounting for 38.3 per cent of the total overs bowled last season, that figure has dropped to 32.1 per cent this season (595.4 overs so far). Consequently, their share of wickets has also declined, with spinners accounting for 30.9 per cent of total wickets this season compared to 36.4 per cent last year. Their economy rate has risen to 9.20 runs per over from 8.86 in the previous edition.

. Muralitharan believes producing fairer pitches is the only way to restore balance between bat and ball, though he admits it is probably wishful thinking.

. “If we can give fair wickets… but then the spectators will be bored,” he noted. “Cricket followers, especially younger T20 fans, are very entertainment-oriented. They want to see fours and sixes. That is why the tournament is built this way, with that extra player coming in to bat and preventing teams from posting lower scores,” he said.

. “It’s entertainment. This is not really about developing cricketers anymore. It is a big business at the moment, right? Sponsors and everything.”

. The IPL’s batting boom may reflect a certain marketing demand but it risks becoming too monotonous. Even though white-ball cricket is designed to favour batters, pushing bowlers to the margins deprives the game of its compelling skill. No doubt, sixes and fours have their own charm but cricket derives its appeal from the battle between bat and ball, not from one part of the game reducing the other to complete irrelevance.

IPL’s big batting obsession

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