Would it be unrealistic to expect that SRH, or indeed any of the other nine franchises, will surge past 300 this time around?
Every season of the Indian Premier League is suffixed with the label ‘the season of hope.’ The hope that new heroes will emerge. That limits will be stretched, that feats once only fantasised about will be realised. And the desperate, lingering hope that the magical mark of 300 will be breached. Surpassed. Shattered.
RCB captain Rajat Patidar (R) with KKR coach Chandrakant Pandit (c) and Venkatesh Iyer(PTI)
Only thrice in all T20s, across all levels, in more than 10,000 representative matches, has 300 been topped in an innings. All of them, including a scarcely believable 349 – that’s a staggering 17.45 runs per over, on average – have come in the last 18 months. The top four five scores in IPL history, ranging between 266 and 287, all came in the 2024 season, with Sunrisers Hyderabad alone accounting for three. Would it be unrealistic to expect the 2016 champions, or indeed any of the other nine franchises, to surge past 300 this time around?
Fifteen runs an over even in these days of horrendous over-rates translates to around 1200 runs in a day of Test cricket (with 80 overs as the bare minimum). Or 750 runs in a One-Day International innings. Neither is truly in the realms of the possible. But 300 in 20 overs? Very much on the cards, given how adept at smacking the cover off the ball batters have become, how the size of the boundary (already quite miniscule) makes no difference, and how bowling craft and skill and expertise have become sideshows to the unfettered exhibition of power and audacity that batters across the globe have imbibed with practiced ease.
And yet, for the first time in a long while, a concerted effort has been made to ensure that bowlers aren’t mere props or glorified bowling machines whose lot is to run in, deliver the ball and sprain their necks in trying to follow the path of the orbital ball that sails far and wide. In a significant move, the IPL – which prides itself in setting trends and compelling the rest of the cricket world to follow suit – has reverted to the use of saliva, in vogue for a century and a half before the Covid-19 pandemic came acalling, and augmented it with the option of a second ball after ten innings in a night game to offset the debilitating effect of the dew, thereby contributing to a level-playing field that the bowling fraternity was convinced had passed it by.
Revoking saliva ban
The reintroduction of the saliva to keep the shine on the ball and facilitate reverse swing – how much Mohammed Shami’s plaintive cry during the Champions Trophy has had an effect is open to debate – could have far-reaching consequences. The IPL’s Impact Player rule, which has singularly been detrimental to the growth of the genuine all-rounder in India, has found few takers worldwide, but it is more than likely that the saliva redux will appeal more to the larger cricketing ecosystem. Especially in Test cricket, the ban on the use of saliva to keep one side of the ball shinier and heavier than the other has reduced the efficacy of crack pacers operating with an ageing ball. The pandemic a distant memory now, it won’t be a huge surprise if the global authorities take a leaf out of the IPL book and go back to type, to an era where shining one side of the ball with saliva was the norm, however unhygienic it might have appeared, so that the reverse-swingers could have their say.
A second ball to counter the unmeetable challenge of operating with a dew-laden orb is a development the bowlers will be delighted with, because it offers them a greater chance of making a difference. At this time of the year in this part of the world, dew is pretty much a given. The option of asking for a drier, if not newer, ball is one captains are unlikely to let slide by.
Among those captains who will have viewed this protocol with interest are Axar Patel and Rajat Patidar, full-time IPL captains for the first time. Axar has been tasked with leading Delhi Capitals, while Patidar will helm the league’s most popular and least achieving outfit, Royal Challengers Bengaluru. A change in neither captains nor nomenclature has made a difference to the fortune of two of the three (Punjab Kings being the other) original eight franchises never to have won the title. In a team largely devoid of obvious superstars, Axar has the opportunity to be his own man while Patidar will perforce have to operate in the giant shadow of Virat Kohli, never mind if the former Indian captain himself might will otherwise.
Massive movements in the off-season, a plethora of leadership and personnel changes, and a whole new world of possibilities. Bring on IPL 2025, already.
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