The ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is only five matches old, and there is already a debate around the conditions skewing too much in favour of the batters. The pitches are absolutely flat with nothing in it for the bowlers and looking at the trend, there is every chance of the 300-run mark being breached this season. Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), in the only matches they've played so far, scored 286 runs at home and in response, Rajasthan Royals (RR) also reached 242 runs.
Gujarat Titans came 11 runs within successfully chasing the target of 243 runs at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, while Delhi Capitals chased down 210 runs despite being 66/5 at one stage in the run-chase. Even the IPL 2025 season opener saw Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) chasing down 175 runs in just 16-odd overs. Apart from the CSK vs MI clash, where the target of 155 runs was only chased down in the final over, none of the matches have witnessed support for bowlers from the surface.
The Gujarat Titans fast bowler Kagiso Rabada is not impressed with so many back-to-back high-scoring games. He wants the balance between bat and ball. He doesn't have issues with high-scoring matches, but the frequency of the same has to come down.
"The game has to progress somehow, but I don’t think it can just get too flat, like every single game. It would take the fun out of it. You know, then you might as well call our sport Batting, and not Cricket. I have no issues with a few records being broken; that’s fine. High-scoring games are good, but so are low-scoring games. But you can’t have it tilting either side too dramatically, there needs to be a balance that is maintained between bat and ball," Rabada said while speaking to Indian Express.
The fast bowler from South Africa fears that the game will become boring if there are only similar kinds of games happening in the sport. According to Rabada, the most exciting matches are those where the batters are needed to apply themselves to score runs.
"You can’t sit back and complain about the conditions. You must do something about it as a bowler. However, the game of cricket as a whole would just be boring if you just saw high scores or low scores all the time. The most exciting games are the ones which hang in the balance, requiring batters to apply themselves when wickets fall and play really well to win matches for their teams, or bowlers to step up in the same manner. It shouldn’t be about just survival for either," Rabada added.
