‘Worst IPL’ hashtag began to trend after PBKS and KKR were involved in a run fest last night, with India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin making a crucial point.
So what’s next in the IPL? Scores of 300, even 350? Or how about 350 getting chased down? Batters scoring double centuries, 25-ball centuries? Well, after all, that seems to be the pattern the league is heading towards. There’ve simply been far too many 200-plus scores this season, with last evening’s game between Kolkata Knight Riders and Punjab Kings leasing the way, which saw PBKS gun down KKR’s 261 to record the highest chase in T20 cricket, let alone IPL, with eight balls to spare.
R Ashwin’s plea after Punjab Kings and KKR combined to score over 520 runs(Getty-PTI)
As Jonny Bairstow pummelled a century, and Prabhsimran Singh, along with Shashank Singh, clubbed fifties if their own to get PBKS over the line by eight wickets, India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin showed sympathy for the bowlers and echoed the thoughts of several Indians watching the IPL. “Save the bowlers, someone please,” he posted on X, followed by SOS emojis. He further posted: “It’s run a ball for the last 2 overs of a T 20 game in a chase of 260-plus. Let that sink in.”
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His message is a food for thought. In the last 12 IPL matches, 12 times have teams scored over 200 runs. 250 has been crossed seven times this season and bowlers have merely been reduced to bowling machines. Even 200 is not a safe total. Gone are the days when 180 used to be a challenging target. They’re long behind us. The imbalance between the bat and ball, flat wickets, and the dreaded Impact Player rule has taken the excitement out of this year’s IPL and which is why fans aren’t entirely wrong if they feel 2024 is the ‘worst IPL’ of all time, a hashtag that has been trending since last night.
Taking nothing away from the herculean chase pulled off by Punjab Kings – it’s not everyday that history is made – but that’s also where the need to make it unique and special arises. Some are comparing last evening’s run-fest to the ODI epic played out by Australia and South Africa in Johannesburg 2006 – when the Aussies became the first team to breach 400 and post 434, only for the Proteas to chase it down. Make no mistake. This is nowhere close to it. Yes, it will go down in history as an IPL epoch, but the nature of wickets, the conditions, and like mentioned above, the Impact Player rule is killing the joy out of the world’s greatest franchise cricket league.
If there are concerns, there’s support too
Several cricketers – current and former alike – have come out in the open and voiced their opinions against the Impact Player rule. Rohit Sharma led the way, explaining how basically, adding a 12th player in the team is doing no good. Allowing a team to substitute a player during or after the innings has hampered the value of all-rounders and added a boost to the team’s batting arsenal. Rohit’s comments were backed by the likes of Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Axar Patel, Aaron Finch and to a certain extent even Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting.
“I am not a big fan of the Impact sub rule. It is going to hold all rounders back, eventually cricket is played by 11 players not 12 players. You are taking out so much from the game to make it entertaining for people around,” the former Australia captain had spoken. And rightly so.
But not everyone feels this way. AB de Villiers feels there isn’t much harm in the Impact Player rule, whereas Irfan Pathan credited the batters for showing the heart of a lion. “Cricket has changed. Mind set of batsmen has changed,” he posted on X. His former India teammate Aakash Chopra, meanwhile, reckons bowlers need to figure out a way to evolve in the IPL.
“How do you define a game like this? ‘Historic’ is the only way to describe this, I guess. 262 successfully chased with 8 balls and 8 wickets to spare. What else is possible? Batters have unlocked their true potential. Over to the bowlers to do what they do better than batters… that’s adapting and evolving.”
As great an idea it is, bowlers would need that support from the authorities, starting with something as basic as making IPL more even-sided. Cricket has always been a contest between bat and ball. If you give one an advantage for the sake of entertainment – which by the way, isn’t guaranteed by posting big totals – you’re messing with it.
