“Give helmets to the crowd’’: South African cricket great Barry Richards makes call for change after IPL hitting frenzy

One of cricket’s greatest batsmen says enough is enough. The domination of bat over ball has gone too far in T20 cricket.

Batting great Barry Richards has called for the use of softer balls and thinner bats to rescue long-suffering bowlers from despair in Twenty20 cricket.

South African icon Richards, rated by Sir Donald Bradman as one of the game’s greatest openers, feels the batting carnage in the Indian Premier League and other T20 competitions is getting out of hand.

Abhishek Sharma has the most sixes at this year’s IPL with 35. Picture: R.Satish Babu/AFP

Statistics from of the latest Indian Premier League reveal jaw-dropping domination by batsmen with 1000 sixes for the tournament reached in just 57 matches compared to 67 last year and 70 in 2022.

Sixes are flowing at the rough rate of one every 13 balls.

Richards, a former member of the MCC World Cricket Committee which governs changes to the laws of the game, feels T20 cricket has been blasted off its axis.

Tim David is one of the biggest hitters at this year’s IPL. Picture: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP

“Cricket to me has always been a contest between batsmen and bowlers,’’ Richards said.

“That is gone now from T20 cricket. You might as well take the helmets off the batters and give them to the fieldsmen and the spectators.

“People will put up with the one-way stuff for a while but eventually it becomes boring. Another six. What does it mean?

“I would like to see more latitude given to the bowlers in terms of the wide rule. It’s too severe.

“Also maybe a softer ball or even a pink ball to give the bowlers a chance. It would just be a fairer game. It has gotten out of hand. The T20 game has gone a long way away from the other forms of the game.

“You see that with a guy like Jake Fraser-McGurk who is a superstar in the T20 game yet is averaging 18 in first class cricket where the bowlers are attacking you.

“I know it has always been a batsman’s game and probably always will be and that is fine. But it is time to redress the balance a little bit.’’

Richards has been a long-time supporter of limiting the width of bats and campaigned on this issue when he was a member of the MCC committee.

“I wanted a 30 millimetres (maximum edge width) but they settled on 35mm. The bat I scored (325 in a day for South Australia against Western Australia in 1970) had an edge which was 18mm wide so that is the difference. It’s not just the width.

“They make bats much better these days with the curvature. It would be like putting Tiger Woods on the red tees in his prime and shorten the holes and see if he could shoot an amazing score. It just doesn’t feel right. Maybe I am old school.’’

Originally published as “Give helmets to the crowd’’: South African cricket great Barry Richards makes call for change after IPL hitting frenzy