It is no longer about teams relying on a top-order batter to convert starts
Six 200-plus totals so far in the Indian Premier League (IPL) but no individual hundreds points to a unique trend of franchises relying less on top-order batters to convert starts. Two of these totals were the highest-ever in IPL and yet the best individual scores were a 39-ball 85 from Sunil Narine who opened the batting for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Wednesday, preceded by an unbeaten 34-ball 80 from Heinrich Klaasen who batted at No. 5 for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).
Travis Head scored 18-ball fifty against Mumbai Indians.
Neither Narine nor Klaasen needed to play a wait-and-watch innings because others chipped in with high-impact scores. Klaasen top-scored but it was opener and impact sub Travis Head’s 62 off 23 balls that set up SRH’s massive total that had three half-centuries and a comparatively sedate but still quick 28-ball 42 from Aiden Markram. Similarly, Narine provided the launchpad but it was only because of impact sub Angkrish Raghuvanshi’s 27-ball 54 that KKR could maintain the momentum in the middle overs before Andre Russell and Rinku Singh took over.
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“I feel the impact players had a bit of an influence on that,” said Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting after the match on Wednesday. “The fact that most teams have now got someone reasonably good that can bat at number nine, and sometimes even a specialist batsman at number 8. That definitely helps, so it gives the batting team the extra freedom to go harder earlier.”
KKR’s 208/7 against SRH last month is a case in point. Reduced to 51/4 in the eighth over, they kept throwing punches courtesy impact-sub Ramandeep Singh’s fiery 17-ball 35, paving the way for Russell—coming in at No 8—to go berserk with a 25-ball 64. More emphatic was Shivam Dube’s belligerent riposte against Gujarat Titans, hammering 51 off 23 balls to catapult Chennai Super Kings from 104/2 in the 11th over to 206/6. This is a major departure from when teams used to build their totals around one big innings – Chris Gayle’s 175 in 2013, Murali Vijay’s 127 in 2010 or Mike Hussey’s 116*— coming from No 1-3 of the batting order.
Narine now features in two of the highest IPL scores, both times opening as well, but he knows he doesn’t have a batting reputation to protect. While that has got Narine to press the accelerator, KKR has benefited from sustained phases of high run rates as a result. This has often been the Achilles heel of many an IPL innings in the past, kicking off with a bang but slowing down invariably because a top-order batter wanted to consolidate on his start.
And then there have been occasions when top-order batters could have been more aggressive but couldn’t step up because of a lack of support. Like when Virat Kohli scored an unbeaten 61-ball 101 in RCB’s 197 last season, or KL Rahul laboured to an unbeaten 60-ball 103 in 2022. Impact subs, however, are slowly changing the scenario by adding more batting depth. Doing away with the traditional analysis of T20 batting has helped too. Not too long ago, teams used to focus on the Powerplay and the death because of fielding restrictions. But now, because of better bats and flatter pitches, franchises are looking to target the middle overs as well.
That, in turn, has prompted sensible distribution of the power hitters. Sending Narine to open has allowed KKR to redistribute their batting in such a way Russell can be sent in the middle and Rinku in the slog overs. Klaasen’s reassuring middle-order presence is the only reason Sunrisers can be expected to go all the way every time with Head and Abhishek Sharma at the top. Mumbai Indians too have a similar template in place, with Naman Dhir, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya and Tim David forming the power-hitting core after Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan, also two of the cleanest hitters of the ball. The day all click, opponents are bound to feel helpless.
“We have seen evidence of that even in this tournament so far,” said Ponting. “Sunrisers got 277 and Mumbai 245 in the same game. Then another huge score today. I think a lot of that fear is going away because the batsmen know that if they get out, there’s another batsman after them. But it’s the same for every team and 250 is now gonna be a total that you have to get to win games.”
