We are in the second half of another engrossing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL0. While the beats of IPL are now all too familiar, this season has managed to catch our attention because of the consistent stream of high scores we have witnessed. Two days ago, Sunrisers Hyderabad chased down 166 in less than 10 overs, without losing a wicket.
The Hyderabad team has been at the forefront of the run feast that’s been unleased in IPL 2024. They account for three of the Top 4 team scores this season, including the top entry: a staggering 287 vs. Bangalore. In the 2024 edition, the 250-mark has been breached eight times already. And we are still 14 games away from the tournament’s end. In contrast, the 2023 edition saw 250 being breached only once, over the entire event!
This is not an increment change. It’s a sign that the game may be evolving faster than one imagines. 300 is not far away, one imagines. And who knows what the upper limit in a 20-overs innings could be.
Purists would argue that this makes the sport all too one-sided in the batter’s favour. But the audience, who are essentially there from entertainment, are certainly not complaining. And there is Test cricket for the purists anyway. It’s difficult to compare IPL viewership over the years because the digital component does not have transparency on viewership reporting, and the split between linear and digital continues to change with each passing year. But it’s safe to say that we may be in the middle of the most-watched IPL season of all time.
The IPL will make way for the T20 World Cup, and the IPL run feast will invariably extend to T20 international games too. This may have been a boost cricket needed, for some sort of global expansion, which the governing body of the sport has been trying for years now, often half-heartedly, mostly unsuccessfully. If only they muster the courage to pull the plug on the ODI format, the future of cricket may not be that bad after all.
In our latest sports report released in March this year, the awareness and viewership numbers for some of the foreign T20 leagues, especially the Big Bash (Australia), Caribbean Premier League and Pakistan Super League were very healthy. It shows that the Indian audience has developed an appetite for T20-formatted entertainment over time, and this will only rise if we have more high-scoring games. Perhaps it’s time to bring the Champions League, an idea that was too early for its times back in 2008.
Meanwhile, with 14 games to go, I’m rooting for 300. Sunrisers have two home games to go, and we may not have to wait too long.