New Chandigarh: There is a certain sound that has come to define it. IPL Evenings these days — not boundary claps but the sound of the ball disappearing several rows back, followed by a collective murmur that asks: Where did it go?In this version of T20 cricket, even 200 is no longer an even total. For bowlers, increasingly in the IPL, it feels more like survival than competition.
Go beyond limits with our YouTube channel. Subscribe now!Ricky Ponting And Matthew HaydenTwo men who spent most of their careers making bowlers’ lives miserable, now sit in the IPL dugout as coaches and watch their bowlers suffer.The IPL, always a batsman’s playground, has become more and more skewed these days. Ponting’s suggested impact player role for the Punjab Kings has not only deepened the batting line-up. He has set them free. “It’s a really tough thing for bowlers now,” Ponting said. “Modern T20 batsmen… they are big, strong players. The bowler has to leave a couple of inches on the line or the length, and they pay the penalty. The ball is going over the fence and going too far.“Also read: As PBKS hosts GT, India’s neglected stars Gul, are in focus. “The margin for error has shrunk to almost invisible,” said Gujarat Titans Hayden, “Once upon a time in the IPL, the approach was incremental… from taking a single to hitting a six.” Now, it’s on another spectrum. Six, four…then maybe one. It is a reversal not only of order, but of philosophy.”When intention is absolute, how do you disrupt it? The answers, both coaches agree, are not revolutionary, but old-fashioned and executed with precision.Hayden listed them like a checklist: wide yorkers, yorkers on the stumps, slow off-cutters in the pitch. “Variations are not new, accuracy is everything. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, but you have to be near perfect,” Hayden said.Ponting leaned into strategy. “Change of angles, better use of the bouncer,” he said. Looking for the unknown – a mystery spinner, perhaps, someone who can buy a few deliveries of doubt in a format that rarely allows for it.”
