Bowlers' Summer!

The first leg of IPL 5.0 has been about teams finding their feet into this tourney; it hasn’t been the usual explosive start one would have expected - high scoring tight games but more of a steady show with the ball dominating as much as the bat. ‘Indian’ Premier League could be perceived, prime facie, as a contest skewed towards the batsmen but IPL-5 has begun slightly different and promises a better summer for bowlers of all genres.

7 of the 11 matches have been won by team batting first; and only once has a team managed to chase successfully more than 120. Pundits would advocate for the pitch not changing much over the 40 overs; hence pitch and conditions cannot be a factor to rationalize the above observations. Scoreboard pressure can be one aspect, but the line-ups that have failed to chase are too good to have this factor as a reason. So what is it then? For a change we have quality bowling spells as the reason for deciding T20 match results! Thus far we have had 6 fifties and 5 four-fors, while the average team totals have been 137 for 7.

Morne Morkel, Dale Steyn, Lasith Malinga, Brett Lee, Jacques Kallis are the big boys of international cricket who have delivered with the ball in the matches so far, and how! While Lee & Kallis have rolled back the years, Morkel & Steyn have underlined why they are the best new ball bowlers at the moment. The surprise element has been the support cast bowlers (Indian medium pacers) who have capitalized on the pressure created at the other end and by bowling wicket-taking deliveries more consistently. Likes of Balaji, Dinda, Munaf, Harmeet Singh aren’t the headline-makers but have an important role to execute. The preceding 4 seasons suggest that the side with most effective Indian domestic players is the one which generally goes all the way; IPL 5 doesn’t promise to deviate.

Fast bowling is an underrated aspect of T20 cricket, especially if you are playing in the sub-continent. Often the faster you come onto the bat, the quicker you are hit to the fence! With no international cricket at home for a good 4-5 months, the tracks haven’t worn out into slow and low surfaces. It has been a blessing in disguise for everybody - bowlers have had a say in the outcome of the matches and the viewers have had a treat to witness high-quality fast bowling. It may only be a 4-over spell but it brings to the table an intriguing battle between batsmen looking to score big in the first 6 overs and the bowlers looking to get early breakthroughs.

As the tournament moves forward you will invariably find the pitches easing out, getting slower and lower and spinners taking over as the dominating genre in the wickets column. It is often said that as the format gets shorter the role of bowlers lessens, in terms of impact, but quality skills either with the bat or ball or in the field shouldn’t have and don’t have limitations of a particular format. While 190-200 run matches can make for good TV, a 150-160 run match can accommodate a fair contest between ball and the bat. These days with most things in favor of the batsmen, a tournament in favor of bowlers can be ideal for it deviates from routine, sets up fair competition, and tests the batsmen’s skills to tackle the conditions and the bowling. I hope the IPL organizers and the pitch curators across the board don’t pay too much heed to the low average totals thus far and convert the ‘sporting’ tracks into ‘flat’ belters!