Saliva or not, IPL will remain ‘six fest’ if ground realities don’t change
It is that time of the year when bowlers have second thoughts about their career choice. If IPL can give false confidence to batsmen about their abilities, it can also shatter the conviction of bowlers, get them social media abuse and give lifelong trauma. This season the BCCI has allowed bowlers, cricket’s marginalized lot, to use saliva to shine the ball and in case of heavy dew in the second innings provide them a dry old ball. Thanks but no thanks, that’s too little, too late. This can’t be the antidote to cure the bat-ball imbalance in white-ball cricket.
Last season, IPL saw an unprecedented 1260 sixes hit by batsmen with varying skill sets. There was one every 13 balls. The season before that, pacer Yash Dayal, on a lifeless Ahmedabad track, was hit for five sixes in an over by Rink...