The other day, when I was watching the game between Lucknow Super Giants & Rajasthan Royals, I was stunned to witness LSG send who are known in international cricket as bowlers who can bat up the order in chase of if not a tall score a middling one. Gowtham, Holder and Deepak Hooda who are at the best lower order batsmen went in at one, two and three down respectively. I just could not believe what I was seeing and I really thought that Rahul has lost his mind. I do not have much regards for Rahul’s captaincy but this must be poor by his own standards. There were other new strategies that emerged in IPL 2022 too.
All you can see is all-rounders batting up the order
When you switch on the TV and see Gowtham and Holder batting, you will naturally be inclined to think that the batting side is losing the game because at the wicket are two tail-enders. However, when you see the score and see just a couple of wickets lost, you will immediately wonder whether you are in any parallel universe or if the captain has lost his mind. LSG packed their team with all-rounders. What was the point of such a team? It is not like they restricted Rajasthan Royals to a low score. RR ended with a healthy 165 and they eventually won the game.
It is alright to pack the side with allrounders so long as they are capable of contributing with both bat and ball. In the history of cricket, there were only two, Gary Sobers and Jacques Kallis who can be classified as real all-rounders. The rest are good to decent in one and below average in the other.
Ashwin at it again
The next is the Ashwin case. Ashwin as we all know is an excellent thinker of the game. He is famous for running Buttler at the non-striker’s end during the IPL. He was wrongly pilloried for that act. It was something that is within the laws of the game but seldom used. Batsmen are adept at taking unfair advantage by taking more than a few paces before the ball is delivered. If this is not cheating, what Ashwin did was not cheating either.
There was one other instance of Ashwin thinking out of the box. This happened in the 2019 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, an internal Indian first-class competition. He removed his batting pads so that he will be able to run quicker with the match hanging in the balance. Again, there is no rule that states that the batsman will wear pads through his innings. These instances clearly show the mind of Ashwin which constantly ticks.
The same Ashwin has now brought into effect one more of the rarely used option. He decided to retire out when he wasn’t able to force the pace of the game. It happened in the game against Lucknow Super Giants. Again, this is not against the rule or the ethics of the game.
It was a team decision
Apparently, Sanju Samson, the captain, later revealed that it was a team decision and it was discussed in the team meeting. Ashwin had bought into it wholeheartedly.
“It’s about being Rajasthan Royals (Ashwin’s retired out). We keep trying different things,” Samson said after his team’s three-run win.
“Have been talking about it before the season. We thought that if some situation occurs, we can use it. It was a team decision.”
Team decision or otherwise, it was brave on the part of Ashwin to accept something that is not used extensively in the cricketing world. Infact, he would have been proud to have been involved in this too.
Ashwin said about the strategy, “T20, as a sport, is heading towards where football has reached. Just like how they’re using substitutions, I did something similar [retiring out]. Already we’re late, but I believe this will happen a lot in the coming days. I don’t think it will be a stigma like running someone out at the non-striker’s end.”
Conclusion to new strategies emerge at IPL 2022
T20 may undergo a revolution in the short to mid-term with so many changes. Only time can tell whether they are good for the game.