Are IPL hundreds becoming slower?
KOLKATA: There have been five hundreds this IPL, all while batting first and each leading to a win. The duopoly of Jos Buttler and KL Rahul, while every bit reassuring for their respective franchises, may still leave a lingering question—have they batted quick enough?
T20 hundreds first hit cricket as mathematical marvels designed to mete out the shock-and-awe treatment to bowlers. Going after the bowling from the first ball, Chris Gayle, Yusuf Pathan, Adam Gilchrist and AB de Villiers symbolised an era that believed in the “see ball, hit ball” motto. For them, going in hard and heavy was non-negotiable, even if they got out.
That approach seems to be changing. Of the five centuries hit this IPL, the quickest—by Rahul—came in 56 balls. The slowest, by Buttler off 66 balls, was one delivery short of the IPL record of 67 balls by Manish Pandey in 2009. Till date, 19 of the 40 IPL centuries to come off 51-60 balls have been scored from 2018 onwards.
Just one of the 25 hundreds since that season has come under 50 balls—in 45 balls by Kings XI Punjab opener Mayank Agarwal (106) against Rajasthan Royals in 2020.
The shift towards playing out more balls—usually consumed while adapting to a more spread out field after the first powerplay—seems to have started towards the end of the 2016 season, which saw two sub-50 ball hundreds, by Virat Kohli and de Villiers. Interestingly, only two of the 16 IPL hundreds to come off 41-50 balls came after 2016. Putting all this into context is the list of the 10 fastest IPL hundreds, each under 50 balls and coming in 2016 or earlier.
What’s the deal about 50-ball hundreds? They are the hallmark of batting superiority because of that magical 200 in the strike rate column. Sacrilegious as it may sound, anything less than 200 doesn’t feel threatening enough even if it does in reality.
IPL bred this habit early when Gayle, Pathan and de Villiers ran riot with our collective imagination. Think of the 30-ball pandemonium (ultimately 175* off 66) by Gayle in 2013, where even good length balls were dispatched. When Gilchrist took 42 balls to score* an IPL hundred in 2008, no one at that time thought it could be bettered. It seemed logical considering that the ODI record then was still Shahid Afridi’s 37-ball epic. But he was a freak of nature and the dimensions of Nairobi’s ground have always been hotly contested.
Bengaluru’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium is not among the bigger grounds in India. And maybe Pune Warriors India were in a rut, not knowing how to recover from the early onslaught.
Gayle too benefited from an unwavering conviction of not bothering about running twos, not worrying about losing his wicket and going for the maximum every time possible. You know that goal has been more than achieved when someone reaches his hundred in the ninth over.
Sanath Jayasuriya (45 balls) in 2008, Pathan (37 balls) in 2010, David Miller (38 balls) in 2013, Gayle and de Villiers several times over—IPL has spoilt us with many hundreds that we didn’t care about the result as long as the knocks were events themselves.
Then the IPL batter started becoming more aware of his potential. Coming out swinging at all costs slowly became a licence only a few were granted. For everyone else there was usually too much at risk for one match of glory. As a result, batters started to view it as an “I miss, you hit” game. Too many mistakes and it could be career-threatening. The days when everything came together became too few. So, they mostly strive to take it deep and not leave the job to others, also aware that the more balls they play, chances of getting a hundred only improves. To be fair to them, that approach is more often than not necessitated.
A perfect example would be the 62-ball 103 Rahul scored against Mumbai Indians. In a game where other Lucknow Super Giants batters scored only 57 from 58 balls, the situation dictated Rahul to dig deep. He batted till the last over to set a winning total, but even that isn’t enough at times. Like in 2017, when Hashim Amla batted all 20 overs to complete his century off 58 balls while helping Kings XI Punjab post 198/4. In response, Mumbai Indians rode a 37-ball 77 from Buttler to win with 27 balls to spare. Buttler’s scoring pattern hasn’t changed much over the years but in a similar situation today, he would have probably batted till the end.
An all-format international for England now, Buttler is far more aware of his responsibility as an overseas opener who has been retained for a cool ₹10 crore. That in turn could be one of the explanations for this trend of making every start count, even if it means curbing a temptation or two at times.