Can bowlers, who have proved to be very expensive in the IPL, expect some relief in the T20 World Cup next month? The question has its origins in the change in T20 batting in the latest season of the IPL. Before IPL 2024, the 250-run mark was crossed only once in the league but in the recently concluded season, teams managed to do so eight times.
Batsmen like Australia’s Travis Head and West Indies’ Andre Russell, who have given a new dimension to batting in the IPL, will also be seen playing in the T20 World Cup to be held in the West Indies and the US next month. So it is natural for fans to expect batsmen to dominate once again, but for several reasons their attitude may not be as one-dimensional in the World Cup as it was in the IPL.
First of all, teams will not get the facility of impact players in the World Cup. Mitchell Starc acknowledged that after playing a big role in Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to their third IPL title. Starc had said- Here (in IPL) there is an impact player rule and this will not happen in the T20 World Cup. You have to rely more on your all-rounders. You cannot put your batting all-rounder at number eight as you did in the IPL.
He said, ‘I don’t think you will see such big scores in the T20 World Cup because there will be one less batsman.’ In the early part of the IPL, Chennai Super Kings used fast bowling all-rounder Shivam Dubey as a batsman through the impact player rule.
