Last night, IPL, and T20 cricket, witnessed its biggest run fest ever. Aadya Sharma, at the venue, wonders if the increasingly lopsided game is putting the future of bowling in a real jeopardy.

“Needs a three in front of it, does it now?”

Travis Head, the top run-getter of the highest-scoring T20 match of all time, joked that his team’s next target was 300. Twice in twenty days, his team has come a few hits away from getting there.

At the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, historically a deathbed for bowlers, Head plundered a 39-ball hundred, headlining a game that will always be celebrated and frowned upon – whichever way you look at it – for its run-making mayhem. Yes, there was brilliant batting: Head’s step-out lofts, Heinrich Klaasen’s golf swings, Dinesh Karthik’s gutsy ramps and reverse sweeps – it all made for a power-packed package in a record-breaking game.

But what about the bowlers?

Who’s going to think about the poor souls? Of the thirteen bowlers who operated across the two sides, everyone had an economy rate in the double digits. Barring Abhishek Sharma, who bowled a solitary over, everyone conceded at least two sixes, and one went for as many as six. As I sat in the press box, trying to keep one eye on my laptop and another on the massacre in front, sixes felt less sexy and more sickly. Across three and a half hours, bowling obliterated into oblivion, leaving behind a blurry overdose of big hits.

Yes, there was quite a bit of bad bowling too. There were 25 wides combined – that’s a whole lot of erraticism – and a lot of slot-feeding to the batting monsters. But it was also a product of the hiding they were getting, trying to alter their lines in the hopes of surviving the full blast of a maniacal batting storm that spared no one.

It was not the first time 250 was breached this season; this trend isn’t going to die. What is dying is the craft of bowling in T20s when there’s no help from the conditions. The gradual improvement of power-hitting by the day has only widened the gap, and the crevasse is getting deeper at a frenetic pace.

“Rubbish bowling to be honest,” quipped Irfan Pathan on X, lambasting RCB’s brittle-looking bowling attack that had Will Jacks opening and Mahipal Lomror, who averages 127 with the ball in the IPL, as their sixth bowler. Five losses down, and carrying a very obvious stronger suit, RCB decided to put all their energy on their batting, knowing all possible combinations tried so far had led to the same result. They hadn’t conceded 200 in this IPL yet, until SRH came in and blitzed 287.

In return, despite a much stronger-looking bowling attack, SRH still managed to concede 262.

“From a bowling perspective, 30-40 runs too much,” felt captain Faf du Plessis, suggesting that 240 is now the par score in Bengaluru. It’s exactly what Pat Cummins said at the toss as well. Near-250 scores aren’t a rarity anymore: they are slowly becoming the norm.

And it’s not a one-off game either. This season, runs per over in the IPL stand at 9.42, much higher than 2023 previous best of 8.99. The average stands at 31.03, again, the highest ever. The lowest all-out score this season is 130. Last season holds the record for the most sixes – 1,124 in 74 matches – roughly 15 per game. This year, after 30 matches, the average is over 17. Batting is booming. The Impact Player rule has helped further, with teams effectively afforded an extra batter.

The “impact sub” has been a worthwhile trial but I feel it’s time to revert back to just playing XI’s. The sub has created an imbalance between bat v ball, it also covers up for poor selection and auction strategy. #impactsub #IPL

— Tom Moody (@TomMoodyCricket) April 16, 2024

What does it mean for the game then?

Right now, it’s all fun and jokes. After the match, Cummins wished he were a batter, admitting he’s given up trying to read the wicket.

Ten days ago, Deepak Chahar revealed that the wickets are flatter this year: “I saw the wicket and asked the [Vizag] curator: ‘You want 300 runs scored on this wicket?’ He said ‘No, in Hyderabad they scored 277, we need to break that’.”

He laughed, but the joke’s slowly becoming a reality.

Deepak Chahar said to me in jest before one of the games that maybe the groundsmen are looking for 300 pitches and hoped that they could prepare 200 pitches, which in spite of the smile, was a revealing statement. Pitches must allow bowlers to come into the game otherwise it…

— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) April 15, 2024

The game’s gone to another level… actually, only half of it has.

The first step to any problem is acknowledging it. The sport has dangerously tilted to one side. While run-fests entertain in their own way, they strip cricket of vagaries and uncertainties, rapidly creating a template for batting lineups to feast on. Pitches and conditions are favouring bat-wielders more and more, leaving little room for the ball to fight back.

After the match, Tabraiz Shamsi, former world No.1 T20I bowler, wondered whether people genuinely enjoyed games like these. Kevin Pietersen asked the same. Who wanted to be a bowler, quipped Sachin Tendulkar, arguably the greatest batter of his time. A dangerous statement merely thrown at the end of a congratulatory message to SRH and RCB’s batters.

Too much of anything can be damaging. At this point, cricket’s falling into the same space as social media addiction, making us all dopamine junkies, constantly asking for more: 300, 500… 

Over time, even this steep climb will hit a plateau, stagnating the joy that run-scoring gives. The balance needs to be better for cricket to still feel as satiating a sport. The mind boggles at the dystopian possibilities.

So far, there’s been little done to safeguard the interest of bowlers in a rapidly-changing landscape. After last year’s ODI World Cup, Gautam Gambhir equated bowlers to bowling machines, an analogy that’s fast becoming commonplace. It is what Ian Chappell said two years before, and Tendulkar a year before that.

There is no immediate solution in sight, really, but ideas are floating around. Harsha Bhogle feels we need to find a ball that swings more, like the Dukes in red-ball cricket. The two-bouncer rule in the IPL hasn’t really made a difference so far. Does the leg-before Law need tweaking? An extra fielder?

Was thinking about what could be done to stop the flow of runs in t20s. There’s this theory that impact player rule has made 200+ score a new normal. How about give something to the bowlers ! give the fielding team an EXTRA FIELDER from over 16th to 20th to put that fielder…

— Shreevats goswami (@shreevats1) April 16, 2024

I will reiterate this. We need greater balance between bat and ball and in a situation where the pitches aren't helping, the ball must do more in the air. How about a Duke ball, a ball with a more pronounced seam, that allows more lateral movement and ensures batters can't just…

— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) April 15, 2024

– Tilt the LBW Law more in favour of bowlers
– Allow a bowler to bowl 6 overs (or two to bowl 5)
– Allow one more fielder outside the circle during every phase https://t.co/KdDhBfRNmr

— Abhishek Mukherjee (@ovshake42) April 16, 2024

Peering into the future, apart from the select few greats who can defy any surface, you fear for the specialist bowler. Jasprit Bumrah and Pat Cummins are still able to withstand run-hurricanes, but there aren’t enough of them to counter the skew. The way the game is shaping up may dishearten young hopefuls from taking up bowling as a profession. Why subject yourself to the embarrassment? Can you really be that good to hit the very small percentile?

If almost everyone is getting pumped, why not opt for the all-rounder who might whack a few over the ropes himself? Or else, let’s go full Gambhir: Line two bowling machines up at each end and put a glorified six-hitting contest in motion.

Would that really be so different to what we have now?

For the sake of our great, grand sport’s health, it better be.

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