Nearly a week of IPL is gone and it seems that a 150-run total isn’t good score. If a team batting first makes 180 plus total, even that is not a safe score. Teams are easily chasing down big totals without much of a trouble. On Sunday, after the Delhi Daredevils made a score of 184, every one present at the Feroz Shah Kotla thought that it would be a cake-walk for the home team. But at the end of the second essay of the match, the Rajasthan Royals were the winners.
Similarly at the Wankhede stadium, after the Kings XI Punjab made 177 for five, the Mumbai Indians made 159 in reply. Even the match between the Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad had the same feature. After CSK make 209 runs, the Hyderabad lost the match by only 45 runs. The opening match between the Mumbai Indians and the Kolkata Knight Riders saw the defending champions (KKR) chasing down nearly 170 runs. The CSK-Daredevils match is the lowest affair in the tournament so far, where the Chennai team made around 150 runs and won the match by a solitary run.
Is this a trend now that scoring at least 170 plus runs the only way out to win an IPL match? With a tinge of green in most of the pitches of the country, the BCCI wants to ensure that each and every IPL match in played on a sporting track with average score 160. There is no hard or fast rule that every match has to produce those runs, but it should have everything for different departments of the game.
Due to the wear and tear of these pitches, the average score of the teams may go down a little bit with passage of time, but the BCCI ground and pitches committee has working round to clock to ensure that the standard of good score continues till the end of the tournament.
The culture of influencing the curator by the team management is gradually decreasing. The Kings XI Punjab for instance preferred to play three of their home matches in Pune, which was supposed to be hosted by the Himachal Cricket Association. The team didn’t worry much about the home advantage. This new trend may give a new dimension to the Indian cricket!
