The Australian great Ricky Ponting asked batters to lower their expectations after initial games in the ICC T20 Men's Cricket World Cup 2024 on Wednesday, June 5. Batters have struggled for big scores in the ninth edition of the tournament in the USA and West Indies with many raising their voice against playing conditions.
The majority of the big-name players witnessed a staggering run fest in the recent Indian Premier League 2024 but are set to face totally different challenges in the World Cup 2024. Both the USA and Canada started the tournament with a thrilling high-scoring opener but fans witnessed only one 150-plus total in the next seven matches.
Ponting defended playing conditions and asked batters to raise their technical game to face different challenges, especially at New York's brand-new Nassau County International Cricket Stadium.
"Being a day game, the ball swung and seemed a little bit," Ponting told ESPNCricinfo. "So batsmen will have to keep that in mind, how they start their innings and maybe just lower expectations on scores. 240 was sort of a score that you were aiming to get in the IPL. It's probably not going to be that for the first part of the tournament here in New York. So that sets a whole lot of different challenges."
In the IPL 2024, teams managed to register 250+ totals for a record eight times with Sunrisers Hyderabad alone breaking the previous highest total three times and setting a new record of 287. However, fans are seeing a totally different situation in the World Cup and Ponting believes that fans were 'a bit spoiled of watching' run fests for the last couple of months.
"There's no hiding the fact in the first game [between SL and SA] it was probably just a little bit swayed in the bowler's favour," Ponting added. "But the other thing we have to be a little bit mindful of is we have probably all been a little bit spoiled of watching the run fests in the IPL over the last couple of months where we had probably the extreme opposite."
In the latest eighth match of the tournament, India restricted Ireland to 96 and needed 74 balls to chase down the target at the expense of two wickets on Wednesday.
