Leg and off: Are these many high-scoring matches good for IPL?
The latest eye-boggling turn of events in the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL) has reduced T20 cricket to an extended version of the controversial T10 format. By the looks of it, the Punjab Kings' (PBKS) historic chase of 262 against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) is hardly the final straw or the peak, but the start of something that questions the overall health of the game.
The bowlers were already feeling neglected in the format with the flat surfaces, short boundaries, and logs pretending to be bats. With the impact player rule thrown into the mix, it has liberated the batters even further, perhaps to the limit, and reduced bowlers to even worse than bowling machines.
It took 11 years for a franchise to breach the 263-run record set by the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Now that iconic team total is placed fifth in the all-time list, and it won't be even in the top five by the time the tournament ends.
The game has evolved, and there is hardly something one can do against evolution, particularly when it is related to mindset, among several other facets.
On that note, let us take a look at how such high scores are influencing the game and what it means for the overall health of the game.
How will it influence international cricket?
Barring the blend of national and international cricketers, there was not much that separated IPL from T20I cricket. The playing conditions were more or less the same, and the playing style and results across both worlds reflected the same.
The impact player rule has introduced a disparity between T20I cricket and the IPL. The gap has further widened this season with the amalgamation of the impact player rule and the ultra-aggressive, fearless approach embodied by the teams.
Earlier, the IPL only required adapting in terms of conditions, and not much in terms of approach. Teams could go and report for their national teams after the tournament, and play a similar brand of cricket. However, that is not the case anymore.
Delhi Capitals and Australian opener David Warner highlighted how the teams will be subjected to alien conditions at the 2024 T20 World Cup that will require a completely different approach. This includes the importance of the anchor role, which the modern game and IPL 2024 have cruelly abolished altogether.
"Even when we played there in the 2010 World Cup, the pitches weren't high-scoring. That's when you did need an anchor, someone like Mike Hussey came out and scored runs for us. He had to come and sort of knock it around. It's gonna be completely different there. Add the natural elements as well. They're going to be predominantly day games, I think, because of the timings. So that plays a big factor," Warner told the media recently.
Teams might face a hard time if they try to replicate the IPL 2024 model at the 2024 T20 World Cup, considering the absence of the impact player rule as well as the stark difference in conditions.
Does the IPL really need astronomical totals to bolster its viewership and monetary value?
Bhuvneshwar Kumar recently chimed in with a sly dig to assert that bowlers still have a place in the modern game.
“Bowling is something which wins you matches. I don’t know who said this but ‘batting wins you the sponsorships and bowling wins you the championships’. That’s very well said," Bhuvneshwar Kumar said after SRH's win over DC.
How much of batters' success is linked to IPL's growth? The IPL's linear financial development has arguably been directly proportional to the scoring rate, which has also grown consistently. However, is run rate really a binding factor in this correlation or is the league's gripping interest in terms of franchise fan following and star players enough to keep it growing?
This is where fans also come in. The most important question of all in this debate is whether fans like it or not since they were, are, and always will be the foundation of the league's success. Although there is no official poll for this yet, it can be largely assumed that the younger section of the fan base is relishing every other ball being hit over the ropes, as it elevates the spectacle.
On the other hand, the traditionalists, still wish for the 200-run score to actually mean something, and intimidate the opposition as opposed to the effect it is causing now and becoming just another landmark and nothing significant.
The high scores are all not bad and are not meant to be entirely berated. A positive that it brings from a viewership point of view is that it does not make the second innings obsolete. Earlier, if scores over 200 were recorded in the first innings, there was little point in watching the second innings for the majority as there was next to no chance that it would be chased down.
Now, with no score being safe, viewers might be as glued to their seats in the second innings as in the first as nothing can be determined till the final delivery is bowled.
High scores and the internal pressure it builds
The bowlers can't bowl 120 yorkers in a row, and it never was possible at any stage of the game, and such levels of desperation from bowlers were never witnessed. The fact is that the margin of error for bowlers is marginal now. So, even if they err slightly in either line or length, they are mercilessly punished.
As far as the good deliveries are concerned, the rewards for it are also equally marginal. This is because batters are encouraged to go after more or less every ball, and even mishits tend to clear the ropes these days.
Such high scores can build pressure on teams, especially in the first innings as they do not know what total they can post, as nothing is defendable as of now. The fear of conditions has drastically reduced for the chasing teams.
KKR coach Ryan Ten Doeschate remarked after the game against the Punjab Kings that 'there is no point crying about the high scores,' and the bowlers will have to 'land a punch back to the batters'. The day is not far when the bowlers might just consider forming a union of their own and go on strike if this goes on.
Recently, during the IPL 2024 clash between CSK and LSG, the former had to push hard to get extra runs due to dew, and at the halfway stage they thought they did. They scored 210 runs, and Shivam Dube, fans, and pundits all felt that CSK had more than enough on the board. LSG went on to win the game by six wickets.