IPL 2024: What is with these absurdly high scores?

The day after the Rajasthan Royals pulled off the highest-ever chase in IPL history by overhauling a target of 224 at the Eden Gardens, the unquestionable brilliance of Jos Buttler continues to be the talking point.

However, given the way the 2024 edition has been panning out so far, does it really surprise anyone to see team scores going through the roof?

Totals of 287, 277 and 272 have been raked up within the first three weeks. At close to the League's half-way mark, the record for highest-ever team total has been rewritten twice by one team — the Sunrisers Hyderabad. The Kolkata Knight Riders came close to matching the Sunrisers’ effort a few days back.

The buzz in the cricketing fraternity is that the breaching of the 300 mark is but round the corner this season.

It’s not that teams haven't piled up 250-plus runs before, though. Only last year, the Lucknow Super Giants ran riot against the Punjab Kings, totting up 256 for 5. And more than a decade back, Chris Gayle’s ruthless 175 in the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s 263/5 against the now defunct Pune Warriors India created a vivid 2013 memory.

What is so special about this season, though, is the frequency with which these huge scores are being mounted — virtually making a mockery of what’s supposed to be an even contest between the bat and ball!

The introduction of the two-bouncer rule, supposed to be an important weapon in the armoury of new-ball bowlers, has done little to balance a tournament that has seen several batting records reset already — highest combined batting strike rate; highest run rate in powerplay; highest batting strike rate at the death; and highest average score when batting first.

The change of approach in the powerplay overs might explain the new approach in a nutshell.

A 60-plus score after the first six overs, with field restrictions, would have been considered a solid one earlier; now, the combined run-rate has been 9.11 so far in this edition. That's a significant jump from the second-highest powerplay scoring season last year, which recorded a run rate of of 8.71.

The combined batting strike rate this year is 148.39; the previous highest was 141.71 in 2023.

The average score batting first this season is as high as 188 — by far the highest for any edition — after the first 30 matches. The average score batting first in the entire season for the IPL 2023, the previous best, was 182.

The dynamics of T20 batting have reached a level that is making the likes of Virat Kohli and K.L. Rahul look like a study in anachronisms. A major contributing factor — no prizes for guessing — has been the introduction of the impact player rule. Go back to the scorecard and you quickly realise that Buttler, the winning captain of England’s T20 World Cup, was actually sent in as an impact player against pace bowler Kuldeep Sen.

Earlier on Monday, 15 April, when the Sunrisers broke their own record with a gargantuan 287 for three against RCB, Travis Head was again used as an impact player, blasting a 102 off 41 balls, at a strike rate of 248.78. He later fell to leg spinner Mayank Markande, who finished with figures of 4-0-46-2.

This effectively means that a team is playing with 13 players—which does make a difference if one boasts the likes of a Buttler or Head on the roster, players who are essentially super subs.

The benchmark will only go higher from here!