adminIt is enough to make bowlers pack up their boots and take the first flight home. If it’s not Chris Gayle heaving over the leg side, it’s Brendon McCullum charging down the pitch and flat-batting through the covers.
If it’s not Kumar Sangakkara torturing fielders like a sadistic surgeon, it’s AB de Villiers sweeping fast bowlers for six — with one hand.
The 2015 World Cup has been the most run-thirsty of all time: record scores, more sixes and more centuries than ever before.
Fielders have become spectators and spectators have become fielders.
Why is the bat so dominant? Why are bowlers so powerless? And does a run-fest actually make good cricket?
The numbers
In case you need proof, the statistics provide conclusive evidence that this World Cup in Australia and New Zealand has been all about the batsmen.
With seven matches still to play, there have already been more team totals over 300 (25), more centuries (35) and more sixes (388) than any other World Cup
Australia’s 417-6 against Afghanistan is the highest World Cup total
Chris Gayle’s 215 for West Indies against Zimbabwe is the highest individual score in the tournament’s history
Teams are scoring faster than any other World Cup — 5.63 runs per over
Bowlers are finding wickets harder to come by — they cost 32.71 runs each
New Zealander Brendon McCullum’s 18-ball fifty against England was the fastest World Cup half-century
South Africa’s AB de Villiers hit the quickest 150, off 64 balls, against West Indies
Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara became the first man to score hundreds in four successive one-day internationals
Much is made of the advantages given to batsmen — better bats, smaller boundaries, pitches that encourage dazzling stroke-play.
But the increase in runs is most often attributed to the 2012 change in ODI playing conditions.
Whereas teams were once allowed five fielders outside the 30-yard circle, they can now have only four.
“If you have one less man outside the ring, batters are targeting where the gap is,” Ireland batsman Ed Joyce told BBC Sport.
“The skill level of the batters is exceptionally good and they are making bowlers bowl differently. When bowlers do something they don’t want to do, they don’t do it as well.”
However, the change in regulations does not fully explain the heavy scoring, because batsmen are only just taking full advantage.
At the 2011 World Cup, the average runs per over was 5.03, while between 2013 and 2014 it was 5.20.
In this tournament, that figure has jumped to 5.63.
With Twenty20 now more than 10 years old and fully embedded into a batsman’s psyche, are we seeing the shortest form of the game finally impose a total influence on 50-over cricket?
“The batsmen have taken T20 cricket into the one-day game,” said former Australia all-rounder Andrew McDonald.
“They have taken it to a new level with so many shots, the ability to score through 360 degrees. They have the confidence to play them in any game.” — BBC Sport.
Online Reporter