A transition to longer formats seems inevitable. declining home and away testing standards; Defeat in the only ODI series in Sri Lanka, first in 27 years. As the ICC Champions Trophy approaches, many veterans are in the autumn of their careers in the 50-over format.
Amid this uncertainty, 2024 was also the year India fully embraced T20 batting.
While the senior team was wrapping up the series in South Africa after winning the World Cup, India’s T20 season had already started with the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT). The major takeaway from the 133-match tournament was that most of the batsmen discovered new ways and the ability to hit big shots.
DNA dynamics
The seeds of a tectonic shift were sown in 2022 with the introduction of impact sub-rules on SMAT. BCCI’s quest to boost the entertainment factor of IPL could be one of the reasons. Since then, scoring rates have increased dramatically as the entire system has bought into the philosophy. Muscle memory is beginning to dictate the trend, so much so that the repeal of the impact bye rule on the 2024 SMAT did not slow the six-elimination increase.
A cursory progress is telling:
SMAT (Overall League Batting SR) – 2022: 116.87 in 131 games; 2023: 127.82 in 131; 2024: 133 at 135.54 (highest)
IPL (Overall League Bat SR) – 2022: 133.94 in 74 mts; 2023: 141.71 in 74; 2024: 150.58 in 72 (highest).
“The impact player rule has completely changed the mindset. Even though we don’t have that rule in the SMAT (now), all players tend to perform well from ball one. When you have that belief, it gives you the motivation to take every delivery,” Mumbai’s title-winning captain Shreyas Iyer told The Indian Express in an Idea Exchange interaction.
origin
After witnessing a rapid surge in big hits in the IPL, Jaydev Unadkat took some insights from Sunrisers Hyderabad to Rajkot to prepare for the metamorphosis that has engulfed the domestic set-up.
Punjab set the template last season, hitting a record 114 sixes in 10 matches to win their maiden SMAT title, but have fallen behind at their own game this year. Of the 38 teams in the competition, 21 teams are higher than Punjab, who have hit 47 sixes in 7 matches this time.
Ranji Trophy ball in the last five years, Saurashtra has significantly reinvented its T20 game to emerge as one of the top five batting sides in the last few editions.
Unadkat emphasized the significant cultural change in coaching, leadership and the new age batter. “Earlier, first-class cricket used to be the main target for domestic launches but that is changing. Almost every team has two or three batsmen and possibly one or two bowlers who are T20 specialists. And they practice power hitting throughout the year.
“If they don’t get selected for the Ranji Trophy, they can be good enough to get selected in the IPL with the scouts around. Some play blinders, score 50 runs in 18 balls, get selected in the IPL team. So now people believe that you can make a career just by playing white-ball cricket. That works on power heating all year round,” explains Unadkat.
Domestic captains and coaches are also doubling up as scouting arms for new ‘white bowlers’. Unadcut unearthed 24-year-old Ruchit Ahir from the Saurashtra Premier League in 2023. After working in the shadows for almost a year, Ahir was among 157 SMAT debutants this season.
Saurashtra added their two highest T20 totals, 266 and 233, after Ahir scored quick fifties in their second and third matches against Baroda and Tamil Nadu respectively.
Record Blitz
37 200 plus totals were made in the tournament. Baroda broke the world record with a brutal attack of 349/5 with 37 sixes against Sikkim to increase their net run rate and qualify for the knockouts in their final group match. On the same day, Mumbai smashed the target of 230 runs in the most successful SMAT chase, finishing top of their group behind Andhra and Kerala.
With a strong batting line-up and a moderate bowling attack, Mumbai’s knockout plans to follow will form the core. Iyer’s men posted another 220-plus total in the quarter to see off Baroda and Madhya Pradesh to clinch their second title in three editions.
Mumbai almost took the bowling out of strategy. In eight quarterfinals, they had the worst bowling economy, leaking 9 runs per over. However, the bats of Ajinkya Rahane, Suryakumar Yadav, Iyer, Shivam Dubey and rookie Suryansh Shedge ensured they had enough firepower, averaging 10.42 runs per over, the best among the last eight.
“You’ve got great depth in the batting lineup. Players can come in off a ball and go bonkers. This has boosted the confidence of many batsmen. And change is inevitable. You cannot control a batsman’s emotions. If you personally feel as a batsman that you can take on any bowler, you go for it,” Iyer said.
The bug also caught the experienced Rahane. He likely topped the SMAT batting charts with 469 runs, a strike rate of 164.56 and 19 sixes. As he puts it himself, this incarnation was the product of “an expansion of my defenses,” an expansion of the senses.
Unadkat agrees. “In previous generations there was a fear of coming out. ‘What if we try to hit two sixes in a row and get out and get scolded by the coach?’ It is now lost in youth. I saw last season being part of SRH. If the wicket is good, the ball is coming into the bat well, you can hit two or three sixes in a row. That’s what I told my side and our coach was on the same page.
“We have seen many other players interested and in regional leagues. He played Blinder of Knock last year in SPL and that’s the first time I noticed him. He has not played red ball cricket. He has only been playing the white ball for the U23 team and that came straight to the T20 team on a match-by-match basis,” says the left-hander.
Ahir hit 14 sixes in five innings, the most for Saurashtra in this SMAT edition.
| IPL | S. M. A. T | India in T20Is | ||||||
| the season | 6 seconds | 6 seconds/match | the season | 6 seconds | 6 seconds/match | year | 6 seconds | 6 seconds |
| 2024 | 1260 | 17.5 | 2024/25 | Year 1855 | 13.94 | 2024 | 236 | 7.15 |
| 2023 | 1124 | 15.18 | 2023/24 | 1503 | 11.47 | 2023 | 184 | 5.75 |
| 2022 | 1062 | 14.35 | 2022/23 | 1177 | 8.98 | 2022 | 297 | 9 |
| 2021 | 687 | 11.45 | 2021/22 | 1041 | 10.3 | 2021 | 87 | 2.48 |
| 2020 | 734 | 12.23 | 2020/21 | 873 | 8.31 | 2020 | 64 | 3.2 |
slippery slope
Similar choices are seen on many fronts, says Unadkat, who also warns against a slightly unsafe path forward. Cheteshwar Pujaras do not flood the circuit as quickly as Ruchit Ahirs.
“Many of those players don’t even try to change their game according to the demands of red ball cricket. This is a big change in domestic cricket in general. Whether it will hurt red ball cricket or not, I think we will have to wait and see for years,” Unadkat observed.
New heroes
Although this is potentially a distant concern, India would do well to reflect on the T20I performance as they inch closer to their world title defence. With the 2026 World Cup likely to see most of India’s games on a fast-scoring ground, they will do well to maintain the tempo they have built in the format.
India’s T20I year ended with an aggregate of 9.55 runs per over, building on 9.23 in 2023 and 9.20 in 2022. After the T20 World Cup win in June, India’s new-age heroes have taken over. In just five months, the Indians have scored six centuries in T20Is and their highest total – a mammoth 297 against Bangladesh in Hyderabad.
It will be hard to ignore the brilliance of Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Verma and Sanju Samson in recent months even as some all-format regulars return after Test and ODI assignments.
India’s major T20 records have been broken this year
297: India’s highest T20I score, against Bangladesh in October 2024, is also the highest by a Test-playing nation.
1,855: Six in SMAT 2024-25, the most in a recognized T20 league.
14: Most hundreds in SMAT season
3: Sanju Samson became the first T20 batsman to score three centuries in a year.
3: Tilak Verma became the first T20I batsman to score centuries in three consecutive matches.
151: Tilak Verma became the first Indian player to score a T20 150-plus score.
87: Abhishek Sharma has set the record for hitting the most T20 sixes in a calendar year.
28: Abhishek Sharma and Gujarat’s Urvil Patel recorded the joint-fastest T20 century by an Indian in 28 balls, the second-fastest century in the world.
349/5: Baroda’s world record T20 score against Sikkim also included a record 37 sixes.
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