Extending the death: Why bowlers must forget about wickets to hit back in the IPL

Tournament run rates have gone up in each of the last four seasons of the IPL. In 2021, it was 8.05 runs per over. This went to 8.54 in 2022, 8.99 in 2023 and 9.56 in 2024. After nine matches in the 2025 season, it is 9.95 runs an over.

There are multiple factors contributing to this, including the extra batter with the Impact Player rule, and more favourable conditions for batting.

All these aside though, the bottom line is those with the ball in hand need to find a way to respond. And what that might need is a complete re-framing of the prevailing thought.

The reversal of attack and defence

First, the basic assumption – that a bowler’s job is to take wickets. “Bowlers are measured, and have been taught since a young age that success means wickets,” Shane Bond told ESPNCricinfo earlier this month.

Where this comes from is no surprise. In first-class cricket, the oldest format, the contest is effectively defined by wicket-taking. The set-up of the sport means simply scoring more runs than the opposition is not enough to win.

Taking wickets in this format is a necessary endeavour. In men’s Test cricket, a total of 1,788 matches have ended in a result. Of these, 1,614 (90.3 per cent) have come as a result of the winning side taking all wickets available to them. In men’s ODIs, 58.8 per cent of results involve the winner taking all available wickets, but in men’s T20Is, only 34.5 per cent of them do.

The structure of limited-overs cricket means the team that scores more runs in the given number of deliveries is the winner, irrespective of wickets lost. The introduction of this cap on overs reduces the relevance of wicket-taking, since losing all the wickets is not the only way a batting innings can end.

In the long format, the necessity of wicket-taking means bowlers are attackers, while batters hold them off. That is why batting in first-class cricket is defensive, as wickets are the only resource available to the batting team. When it comes to run-scoring, the lack of constraint on time means batters can afford to wait for mistakes from bowlers and punish them accordingly.

But once the contest becomes bound by the number of deliveries, both wickets and overs become resources for the batting side. The focus then shifts to run-scoring and containing. For example, at the end of a T20 innings, every batting team would rather score 200-9 than 160-0.

Naturally, this encourages batters to take more risks and attack. This effect only increases as the length of the game becomes shorter (provided the number of wickets remains the same, which is not likely to change anytime soon). It flips the balance of traditional cricket – from attacker, the bowler becomes defender.

Also read: Chennai fans and their Dhoni: A bond in need of redefinition

None of this is new information, but the ever-rising rates of T20 run-scoring indicate that batters have started to become even more fearless in their hitting now – they are more willing to take on the field, and attempt boundaries more often.

The increased risk-taking appetite seems to have come from one key shift in their mindset; the acceptance that their wicket has little value, compared to long-form cricket. In the IPL specifically, this has probably been accelerated by the Impact Player rule, which allows the lengthening of a batting lineup, further devaluing an individual batter’s wicket.

If this new brutality is a result of batters recognising that wickets are low-value, perhaps it’s time bowlers accept the same, and move forward in that way.

Why might run-choking be the better way forward?

Of course, this isn’t a new idea. Bowlers themselves have spoken about this in the past.

R Ashwin: “T20 is where wickets happen. Wicket-taking is a little over-rated. You can't bowl in a wicket-taking way. There are certain phases when you can do wicket-taking. For example, if you've taken a wicket, you can go searching for a wicket off the next ball.”

Samuel Badree: “In T20 cricket you can't go searching for wickets. There are times in the game when you can, but it is about creating pressure. Batsmen have to come at you. That is the format of the game. They have to score runs. They are, by their very nature, coming after you and that will create opportunities in itself.”

Bhuvneshwar Kumar, after SRH defended 118 against MI in 2018: “I was not in Mumbai, but when I spoke to the guys who played in that match, the batsmen made mistakes or went after the bowlers as the dot balls increased, and that is how we kept taking wickets at regular intervals. So the bowlers were not going after the wickets, they just wanted to bowl dot balls.”

In long-form cricket, bowlers take risks in an attempt to take wickets. It is among those attempts that batters’ run-scoring opportunities arise.

Why, then, can the reverse not be true when it comes to T20 cricket? The risk-taking imperative is switched, after all. Batters take risks in an attempt to score runs. It is among those attempts that bowlers’ wicket-taking opportunities arise.

The more and more batters tend towards playing with abandon in the shortest format, perhaps the more and more bowlers’ emphasis should be on simply containing runs. Theoretically, such defensive bowling will lead to a wicket eventually, thanks to the amount of risk batters take of their own accord.

To the contrary, research from Matt Roller last year showed that bowling strike rate, rather than economy rate, might be a more reliable indicator of T20 success, outlining the prevailing trend among champions of major franchise T20 leagues from April 2023 to May 2024. Correlations on that front have not held up quite as strongly across 2024-25, though.

In any case, this is not to put one measure above the other – rather to say that the two go hand-in-hand. Going all in on restricting runs may be a surprisingly effective way to make wickets happen. In Wisden.com, Naman Agarwal outlined a similar approach during the 2024 T20 World Cup.

It can, of course, be argued that the opposite is true. Go looking for wickets, and if you take them, the run rate will come down as batters try to avoid losing any more. It’s not without its merit, but the primary reason this may have worked was that batters tended to become risk-averse once a wicket went down, to avoid a collapse. Now, with comparatively less care given to that side of the scoreboard, it is a less likely proposition.

Defensive standouts – IPL 2025

In the ongoing IPL, one bowler in particular has stood out with respect to defensive bowling.

RCB’s Josh Hazlewood has sent down 48 deliveries in two matches. As per ball-tracking data, not a single one has been projected to hit the stumps.

Hazlewood has effectively taken two modes of dismissal, bowled and lbw, out of the equation. Before the start of IPL 2025, these two modes accounted for 29.1 per cent of wickets attributed to bowlers in men’s T20 cricket.

Stumpings are not realistically part of his arsenal as a fast bowler, while hit wicket dismissals are not entirely in his control either. It means his only wicket-taking avenue is a catch. While catches account for about two-thirds of T20 dismissals, they are still only one method.

Instead, he’s focused on hitting a hard length, irrespective of the period or situation of the game, using his height to generate awkward bounce and make it difficult for batters to score.

The result?

Hazlewood has conceded at under a run a ball in both matches so far, and picked up five wickets.

Harshit Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ravindra Jadeja were all caught attempting to pull deliveries that rose sharply on them. Quinton de Kock, Hazlewood’s first victim of the season, inside-edged a delivery at midriff height to the keeper, but had skied a pull shot only to be dropped, a couple of deliveries earlier.

There will be days where a few of these shots connect, or where edges fly to the fence and suddenly he may end up with 0-40. But fundamentally, Hazlewood's method of forcing batters to take risks off deliveries they probably shouldn’t, by simply drying up the runs, at least gives RCB a leg up on the scoreboard, in the only relevant measure.

Lucknow Super Giants’ Prince Yadav also went for a similar approach against Sunrisers Hyderabad, bowling predominantly yorker lengths in the middle overs. Eighteen of his 28 deliveries (including four wides) were fuller than 4 metres, and he finished with 1-29.

Read more: IPL 2025: Who is Prince Yadav, the seamer with one first-class wicket who dismissed Travis Head?

This isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Hazlewood's ideal method is to hit a hard length and make use of his height. Different bowlers will have different ways of leveraging their personal attributes to do the same. Some will have bounce, others may have variations of speeds and angles. Any assistance in the air or off the wicket will only help their cause as well.

Defensive bowlers have always been around in T20 cricket, but perhaps going forward, the best attacks will have three or four defensive specialists out of five.

In fact, RCB themselves tend towards that this season. First-choice quicks Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Yash Dayal have bowled in a similar manner to Hazlewood, sticking to back of a length and trying to stay out of batters’ hitting arcs. Between the three of them, just one delivery in RCB’s first two matches has been aimed at the stumps.

Add to this attack Krunal Pandya, one of the most underrated and perhaps one of the best defensive spinners in the IPL, and their attack could be tailor-made to make wickets happen.

All this might be easier said than done. Going back to Bond’s words, bowlers are taught that the measure of their success is wickets, so attempting to convince one that they should be "boring" and instead focus on simply not being hit may not sit well with them. In any case, there are always likely to be game situations and conditions that temporarily make a more aggressive approach more viable.

But the way the game is trending, they may be forced to rein in the instinct to chase wickets, and think tanks and team managements themselves may be better served by tilting their attacks in favour of run prevention. The wickets will follow, and even if they don’t, the restriction of runs itself can put the bowling side in front.

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