To suggest that this year’s Indian Premier League has been one in which bat has held the edge over ball would be like pointing out that the Wright Brothers had a little more joy than Icarus when it came to taking flight.
There has been not so much a generous flow of runs as a flood: eight of the franchise competition’s 10 highest-ever totals set in the last month-and-a-bit. Too much of a good thing, almost certainly, and too little balance, for sure.
English batters, though, have been tucking in with the best, the likely top-four for this summer’s T20 World Cup defence all benefiting with displays that saw Tuesday’s squad announcement for that tournament arrive with a fresh sense of optimism, and one not solely tied to Jofra Archer’s potential return.
In the last week alone, Jonny Bairstow has rattled off an unbeaten hundred to lead a chase of 262 with eight balls to spare, while Will Jacks made another in reeling in 201 with four full overs still in reserve. Meanwhile, Jos Buttler, the captain, has a pair of red-ink tons to his name from earlier in the campaign and Phil Salt is now the tournament’s fifth-highest run-scorer, striking at 180, having been picked up on the eve of it.
You can make a case (albeit not a brilliant one) that the ongoing Indian buffet might prove anomalous when it comes to the World Cup. Conditions in the Caribbean, where England play all of their matches, will be different to the subcontinent, while those in the USA, which co-hosts the tournament, remain somewhat unknown on account of the country’s cricketing youth.
More significantly, the IPL’s impact player rule, which effectively grants each team a form of aggressive insurance in an extra specialist batter, and devalues the all-rounder in the process, will be nowhere to be seen.
Ultimately, though, the IPL is too big a melting pot, too influential a trend-setter, to think the world’s best players will not emerge from it emboldened by the previously unthinkable feats of this spring. England, certainly, are preparing for a World Cup in a similar mould, on the basis not only of the IPL’s record-busting but also their pre-Christmas West Indies tour, described by Rob Key yesterday as a “slug fest”.
“It was six after six, with both teams trading blows,” the managing director of men’s cricket said of England’s 3-2 series defeat. “It became apparent how much value you have to put on the power game.”
Beyond the aforementioned top-four will come Harry Brook, who has swiftly returned from compassionate leave to strong form with two rapid hundreds in four County Championship outings for Yorkshire, followed by a middle order likely to be made up of boundary-hitting all-rounders in Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran and Mooen Ali. Even into the supposed specialist bowlers, Key talked up batting as key to selection, and, in particular, the inclusion of Chris Jordan ahead of Chris Woakes. Mark Wood swings hard and Tom Hartley, picked above Rehan Ahmed, hits a long ball, too.
“I think it’s our strength,” Key explained. “Generally, it’ll be that batting depth we want. What it does is give a license to the people before them.
“When you go out as an opener with that long batting line-up, that allows you to go a bit harder and a bit sooner. People talk about playing without fear, but actually it’s not easy to do if you’re the last man left and you fall off a cliff with your batting after that.”
England’s IPL stars will be denied the chance to feast into its finals, with Key confirming that there will be no repeat of the messy build-up that sent last year’s 50-over defence off on weak footing. Instead, all 15 players picked in the provisional World Cup party will be summoned to join up ahead of the four-match warm-up series against Pakistan that starts on May 22, the day after the IPL play-offs begin.
That they will be expected to do so with the same six-hitting mindset, though, appears guaranteed.
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