The quality of IPL was at an all-time low in the 2024 season.
Shivam Dube is a specialist spin hitter of all varieties, and the IPL sides didn’t attack with their spinners while he was in the middle. He is touted as so good that even on slow Chennai tracks, teams didn’t dare to bring on tweakers. Pakistan did; surprisingly, Dube didn’t even try to go after them.
Maybe he was under pressure, which exacerbates when India and Pakistan meet, but you’d still expect him to at least try, even if the execution doesn’t come off. He planned to take some time initially and cover it up against pacers. It is an aspect in which Dube has improved drastically since last year – pace-hitting – and he can even hit shorter lengths well, as visible in IPL.
But this is not IPL, and Pakistani bowlers were not uncooked medium-pacers. Neither the deck was as flat as they were in the league to defend without any foot movement, as Dube did off Naseem Shah. Dube was selected to hit the spinners; he is still not as skilled to thwack pacers currently on a track tailor-made for them.
Also Read: Why did India select four spinners for T20 World Cup 2024?
As if the Impact Player rule wasn’t enough to hinder his progress as a fielder, which was visible during his fielding, the pitches were so flat that Dube became a pace-hitter for Chennai Super Kings (CSK). He tried replicating it against a superior pace attack on a surface offering exaggerated movement, even on cross-seam deliveries. That obviously didn’t come off, and Dube learnt a harsh reality on a tough day in New York.
In fact, every other Indian batter did. The conditions have been completely contrasting to IPL. While the Indian batters have been in T20 mode, they have not really got over IPL, and it’s visible in their batting attitude and the plans; they are batting deep, preferring an all-rounder over their best spinner, Kuldeep Yadav.
Winning T20 World Cup is Kuldeep’s dream 🏆#INDvsIRE pic.twitter.com/Aeh500U6FT
— CricXtasy (@CricXtasy) June 5, 2024
Virat Kohli is opening the innings to utilise the powerplay but was so desperate that he tried to reach for a slightly wide delivery without any foot movement on such a notorious deck. He didn’t account for various facets – an early start and wet weather means some moisture in the pitch, which would make the ball stick and slow down after landing; the track offers excessive seam movement off the shorter lengths; a fielder taken out from gully and put at point for that shot precisely. That would have travelled higher and quicker in any IPL game, and Kohli would have earned a boundary, but not here. Let’s not forget that Kohli is this veteran batter who adapts to any surface pretty well in other formats almost always.
Batting with intent in T20s is one thing; Kohli’s positive approach is palpable and exciting. But you’d expect a batter like him to adapt according to conditions and give at least some respect to the opponent in a helpful environment. Kohli could have at least covered the line of the ball and tried to keep it down since that was a jammed area.
Even Rohit Sharma solely relied on timing on a two-paced deck with variable bounce and couldn’t clear the square-leg region. Rishabh Pant continued batting in his awkward style and rode his luck throughout that stay; he would have been dismissed at least thrice on any other day. Suryakumar Yadav played on the up, banking on his timing rather than using power, a necessity in such adverse conditions, and couldn’t even clear mid-off.
There appeared to be no process in the batting; all they are doing is playing expansive shots and losing their wickets. Sure, things are tough out there for batters, but that’s what international cricket presents, and that’s what these players practise for time and again. If it were so easy, every team would have done it.
It is where IPL has done significant damage this season. The tracks were so flat that shot-making was the easiest, and the boundaries were short enough to take even half-timed strokes over the ropes. Teams breached 200s and even 250s without breaking any sweat; it reached a level that Sunil Narine, opening to just swing his bat, amassed a century.
The quality of IPL was at an all-time low in the 2024 season. The BCCI might have made big bucks, and the viewership might have crossed all the previous barriers, but it didn’t really remain true to its quality. At one point, IPL became unwatchable for authentic viewers, who crave for competitive cricket over gung-ho, senseless batting shows in every game.
There was no balance between the bat and the ball; it was all about batting. The average scores soared like anything, and teams made and broke the highest team totals every other game, not to mention the Impact Player rule giving additional license to hit everything coming the batters’ way.
Clean Hitting to the fullest, ft Shashank Singh 😎
This match has now breached the Highest Number of Sixes Hit in a T20 Match 👏
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— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 26, 2024
There was no room for innings construction by targeting specific matchups and maximising running between the wickets. No batter was required to see a few deliveries before going berserk; it was a boundary-hitting contest for 240 balls every game. A player came and swung his bat; if it worked fine, and if it didn’t, a long lineup started coming in to do the same.
It was impossible to filter the best ones out; everyone, including the tailenders, was repeating the whole cycle. You couldn’t blame them, either. That’s what the situation demanded; if a batter diverted from the route, they ended up playing a negative-impact knock.
It builds muscle memory among batters, which is hard to overcome. All T20 World Cup squad players played ample games in IPL 2024 to get into that hitting groove. If another tournament in the same format starts a week after such carnage, it’s bound to show ill effects to that muscle memory.
The selections are also based on IPL performances, even if the management denies it. In fact, India had no T20I series lined up for four months before this T20 World Cup, and they took the IPL as a preparation and selection tournament. Rishabh Pant’s batting heroics in IPL 2024 opened a place for him in the squad, as Rohit himself accepted, even though he was nowhere in the plans due to that accident.
Also Read: T20 World Cup 2024: Are India over-reliant on Jasprit Bumrah?
And, it’s totally fine; IPL is the best platform to judge a player’s capabilities before drafting him into the national team. Usually, IPL’s quality remains the closest to international cricket since the best players in the world feature in the league. Unfortunately, that quality took a major hit this time, and batting became child’s play, rendering the whole exercise pointless.
While the players selected are the best ones India could have picked, they haven’t overcome IPL fever, where bowlers were treated like bowling machines. Further, the tempting demands of modern-day T20 cricket mean they have no option but to go hard. So when conditions stipulated classic T20 batting, batters couldn’t adjust themselves, as visible from their mode of dismissals.
Sure, the pitches were extreme, even dangerous sometimes, for batting in the New York leg. But did batters really try to apply themselves in every game? Barring Rishabh Pant’s knock in the opening game, and Suryakumar Yadav and Shivam Dube’s partnership against USA, it’s hard to find other instances of adapting in the first three games.
Even Suryakumar was lucky, for he lost his temperament and gave a chance, but Saurabh Netravalkar couldn’t hold it. Shivam Dube was also vulnerable for most of his innings, and his technique was nowhere near ideal against quicks. Rohit scored an attacking fifty in the opening game against Ireland, but the Irish bowlers weren’t really as penetrative consistently.
IPL definitely has a role to play in India’s reckless batting. It’s really harsh to put all of the blame on players.
The conditions in the West Indies leg won’t ease things drastically. One thing is certain – batters must be smarter than they were against Pakistan to navigate tougher threats waiting in the next round. But don’t over-criticise if they can’t; maybe the problem lies somewhere else.
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