What's good for T20 cricket?

As with nature, so with cricket: Equilibrium is inevitable.

Since its recent origins, the shortest format has been a more batters’ game than the other two formats. Twenty20 cricket is merely a concentrated version of a long-standing tradition of fans ubiquitously carrying batters on the shoulders of everyone else and enabling them in the process.

Spectators come to see batters. It’s who the pitches are laid out for. It’s what the broadcasters want to be heard saying… MAXIMUM!

But, ever so often, the trend goes out of whack. Bowlers begin to dictate tempo, they look imposing, they are respected, sometimes even feared. Low-scoring games, wickets by the bundle, batsmen looking mortal.

Parity restored, even if only for the moment.

One can’t deny that bowlers have to be more pervious to change and adaptation than those wielding willows. They have had to reinvent themselves, their approach, their strategies, their skills and numb their ego more often than their counterparts have to.

Sure, if they’re good enough, they will find a way, but like a good batter assisted by an even pitch to turn bully, bowlers lean on pitches that offer something, anything, to show that have more to offer.

In that sense, a slow strip offers a level-playing field, and it’s the kind that UAE, particularly Sharjah, seems to have in abundance. The second phase of this year’s Indian Premier League is evidence of it.

Read | Don't think we could have scored more than 190 but dew became factor: Dhoni

Since arriving in the UAE, no team has scored over 200 runs in an innings in the UAE, Dubai and Sharjah combined. In fact, the highest score so far - 14 games into the second phase - is the 185 scored by Rajasthan Royals. The second highest is the 183 Punjab scored in response in the same game.

In comparison, eight scores of over 200 were achieved in the 29 matches of the first-phase in India.

It’s not an uncommon occurrence in the IPL as pitches, even in India, begin to get slower as the tournament heads towards the knockouts. In UAE, though, it has been a norm from the get-go in this second leg of IPL.

It was the case when the bandwagon flew down in 2014 for the first 20 games of the seventh edition due to the General Elections at home. It was so when the whole of last season was moved there due to Covid-19, ironically with the exception of the UAE.

It bodes well to note that batsmen in the Pakistan Super League suffered a similar fate - it wasn’t entirely the product of poor quality as assumed at first. And of the 121 international T20s held at the three venues, only six totals have crossed 200. Another reason to dread the desert.

This is what Kolkata Knight Riders’ wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik had to offer after their win over Delhi Capitals in Sharjah: “It’s not a great T20 wicket. It’s very slow, stops on you, making it hard for shot-making. It’s not in favour of the batsmen. In a nutshell, it’s not a great T20 wicket. It’s very challenging.

He adds: “…but I enjoy low-scoring games, personally. There’s a different feel to it. You don’t see too often in T20 cricket so that’s interesting.”

Wonder if he would have maintained the same sentiment if Kolkata had lost that game?

Irrespective, what Dinesh didn’t mention - didn’t have to either - was that Kolkata were batting second in pursuit of 127 in Sharjah. Kolkata lost seven wickets in the process and got to 130 with 10 balls to spare.

Evidently, it’s hard to bat even after spells of evening dew.

Though Abu Dhabi doesn’t get too much of that because of a consistent breeze entering and exiting the ground, wicking moisture, it is slightly better to bat on under lights. Sharjah and Dubai are anyway drenched post lights. That explains why 10 out of the 14 games so far have witnessed teams chasing come away with a win.

But it’s not easy. Only easier.

In the same game, Capitals opened the bowling with Axar Patel and brought on R Ashwin and Lalit Yadav early. They bowled 11 overs between them, accounted for 72 runs and ended with two wickets.

Read | Chennai Super Kings get a 'Royal' thrashing as Jaiswal, Dube fifties overshadow Gaikwad hundred

“The wicket was slow, and we figured it was best to get the spinners going before the dew comes on and makes it easier to play,” Rishabh Pant, the Capitals skipper, had said.

He isn’t the only captain to think along these lines. Most teams have relied on their spin units to do the bulk of the job, and pacers have had to get savvy to get by.

With hitting through the line becoming difficult, as witnessed on the matches at MA Chidambaram pitches in the first leg, batters are settling for the dink-and-run tactic to get run-a-ball scores, anything over that is a bonus.

Even Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli, considered by some as the greatest batsmen of this era, can’t meet the ball as cleanly as he would like. He’s good enough to adapt and score 332 runs in 11 innings at 33.20.

But if he and his batting order didn’t have the services of an exceptionally good bowling arsenal led by Harshal Patel, they wouldn’t be third on the table at the moment.

A low-scoring situation might already a bit concerning for those in the business of cricket, and the International Cricket Council will already be dreading the future. There’s a day separating the end of the IPL on Oct. 15 and the beginning of the T20 World Cup on Oct. 17.

Save for the stadium in Muscat, the World Cup will be run on pitches already overused in the IPL, and there’s little time to spruce it up. So, the trend of bowlers calling the shots is most likely going to go on for a little while longer.

Is that good for limited-over products, particularly the T20, which is essentially designed for the domination of batters? Agreed, anything that becomes a norm can lose its appeal - whether it’s the batters reducing the presence of the bowlers for merely forming the quorum or the bowlers regularly starving the batsmen of runs. An absolute run-fest or a low-scoring thriller is always welcome as a break from the routine but spectators, like it or not, come to see the ball being dispatched to the stands more often than the bowlers drying up those big hits.

A balance is important. A match that sees enough boundaries being hit without making the bowlers appear like lambs to the slaughter is essential to sustain the interest in the format.

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