Major League Baseball introduced a designated hitter, replacing the pitcher in the batting order, in the 1970s as a way of raising the likelihood of hits, home runs and greater entertainment for spectators.
After nearly 50 years of being confined to the American League, the designated hitter was added to the National League in 2020, essentially for the same reason. Throughout its history, the designated hitter has been derided by some as a gimmick, favouring pure entertainment over something more balanced.
Jake Fraser-McGurk was thrilled to get playing time in the IPL.Credit: AP
It has even been cited as a sign of societal breakdown. Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote in 1996: “Almost everything that is wrong in American society stems from the DH rule ... it is a symbol of the permissiveness that has eroded our values.”
At this year’s Indian Premier League, a similar kind of cricketing culture war will be fought over an equivalent change to the rules, with plenty of potential consequences for the Twenty20 World Cup to follow.
The IPL addition of an “impact player” last year, to be nominated after the toss of the coin, effectively gives competing teams a designated hitter equivalent: an extra batter in the line-up in place of a bowler at the time of most need.
As a partial consequence, teams are charging harder than ever at the new ball, and scores are shooting up. About a third of the way through this season, the average scoring rate for the league is 9.43 runs per over – the first time in IPL history that it has been more than nine.
Over the two years of the rule, the average scoring rate has gone up by almost one entire run. Four of the five highest IPL totals have been racked up.
That trend was exemplified by Travis Head’s 39-ball century for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Royal Challengers Bangalore earlier this week, as part of a match with a world record T20 aggregate of 549 runs between the two teams, from a mere 40 overs of cricket.
In terms of what casual fans want to see, this may be ideal. The rain of sixes onto the terraces of the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium was certainly lapped up by those in attendance, while the constant stream of highlights contributed to the way the IPL is consumed in Australia.
On Foxtel and Kayo, live audiences for IPL games – most of them in unfriendly overnight time slots – oscillate somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 viewers. But the “Minis” highlights packages do far better the following morning, averaging audiences around 100,000. So more sixes do mean more views.
But for players, particularly those who will be engaged in the Twenty20 World Cup later this year, the impact player rule is a growing source of consternation. As one coach remarked, the rule effectively removes the advantages of team balance and skilful selection from the equation because teams nominate their impact player after the toss.
Indian cricketers, commonly reticent to criticise rules and regulations under the umbrella of the powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India, have started to raise their voices over the past 48 hours.
The national captain, Rohit Sharma, had this to say. “I generally feel that it is going to hold back [development of all-rounders] because eventually cricket is played by 11 players, not 12 players,” he said on the Club Prairie podcast. “I’m not a big fan of impact player. You are taking out so much from the game just to make it little entertainment for the people around.”
Overnight, India’s spearhead, Jasprit Bumrah, also raised his concerns about the impact player. “A bowler becomes half of what he actually is because of this rule.”
As a consequence, hell-for-leather sluggers like Head and his Sunrisers opening partner, Abhishek Sharma, are so far proving more valuable than more classical players like the legendary Virat Kohli, whose place in India’s World Cup plans has begun to come into question amid Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s struggles.
While Kohli is atop the scoring charts, his scoring rate of 147.34 has been made to look pedestrian by Head (199.15), Sharma (197.19) and Heinrich Klaasen (199.21).
Australia’s Twenty20 program is at the centre of the scoring spike. Not only is Sunrisers Hyderabad captained by Pat Cummins, it is coached by Australia’s assistant coach, Dan Vettori. Their approaches will have to be tempered at the upcoming World Cup because of the lack of an impact player rule, but that is also a stage where the all-round strength of the side will be a significant advantage.
In captain-to-be Mitch Marsh, Cameron Green and Glenn Maxwell, the Australians have a trio of top line all-rounders. In Cummins and Mitchell Starc, there are also a pair of bowlers who have the ability to turn games with the bat if required.
Perhaps baseball’s greatest of all, Babe Ruth, was the equivalent of an all-rounder – a pitcher who could hit with power. In the era of the designated hitter, spectators might never have known exactly how good he could be.
India’s talent stocks, meanwhile, have never looked deeper. The emergence of the phenomenally fast Mayank Yadav turned plenty of heads when he won the match award in each of his first two games for Lucknow, even if a side complaint has since kept him out of several fixtures.
Top quality speed and spin is, in effect, becoming more valuable. In a league where cricket now has a designated hitter equivalent, it will be high pace like Yadav’s, or the canny wrist spin of Yuzvendra Chahal, that has the ability to buck the trend of big hits and high scores.
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