T20 World Cup Tamil News: The 2016 T20 World Cup Final was held at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. West Indies player Carlos Brathwaite was the Hercules of cricket in that match. Hitting 4 consecutive sixes, he beat England and sent his team kissing the trophy.
A month later, he was coaching kids in Dublin, running a sports shop to support his cricket career. It was at that moment that he was bought at the Indian League auction for Rs 4.2 crore, 13 times his base price. Advertising giants lined up to join hands with him. Other IPL franchises have tried to invent or produce their own broadsides.
The six became the sport’s anti-inflation currency. The six-hitting Sultans became the new rich. Virat Kohli’s modest performance in the 2016 edition was mocked. The singles and twos, threes and fours games were unwinnable, the story unfolded. The next step in T20 evolution appeared to be a team full of “special sixes”.
Every team needs a power-hitter. But they have to be ferocious run-scorers, boundary-hitters and all-weather giants with consistency. Behind every tournament success, there is always a consistent player.
Last IPL champion Gujarat Titans had power-hitters like David Miller and Hardik Pandya. Both are skilled six-strikers. But that’s not the only layer of their game. Pandya, incidentally, hit just 12 sixes in 15 innings. And scored his runs at a very strong strike rate of 131. Among the 10 teams, Gujarat scored the fewest totals (79).
Let’s get back to the T20 World Cup. What is needed here is a player who will perform well in their team throughout the series. Matthew Hayden was the highest run-scorer in the opening edition of the series. He hit 10 sixes in six games. This is the most sixes in a single game by a power-hitter. Second highest run-scorer and star of the final, Gautam Gambhir hit only five sixes in seven overs. This was one less than his teammate Yuvraj Singh let fly in the wide over by Stuart. However, Hayden and Gambhir scored their runs at a strike rate of 144 and 130 respectively. In the same match, former Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene hit only four sixes but scored his runs at a strike rate of 150. Another hitter Mishab-ul-Haq hit just nine sixes in seven games. But he still scored at a strike rate of 139.
This is where a fair debate comes in. Those were the early days of T20 cricket. Over the next 15 years the sport evolved at breakneck speed. To strengthen the argument, the average number of sixes per game has risen. But the bottom line, and irony, is that the action hitters are not sixes. But consistent batsmen thrive and influence games.
The performance of Babar and his opening pair Mohammad Rizwan has been a study. Babar hit only five sixes in the entire tournament. Rizwan’s shots traveled over the rope 12 times. However, his strike rate was better than Babur’s (127.72 to 126.25). Then defending champions West Indies were packed with six-power hitters. But they won only one of their five games. Kane Williamson, one of the most influential batsmen in T20I, hit five sixes.
So hitting sixes alone doesn’t win games. Rather it is a combination of all factors. Hitting sixes is one of them. Against slightly harder pitches and imposing bowlers, a strong technique and ability to find gaps and score runs at low risk is valued. Prizes that don’t have many power hitters increase the availability of high-quality anchors.
They will undoubtedly be invaluable in Australia, where stadiums are bigger than Asian ones. Getting the balls to fly over the ropes can be a bit difficult. And two and three runs will be plenty to run. Some stadiums are slightly below average overall. For example, the average first innings score in Sydney is 160 and the second innings is 140. In Melbourne it was 139 and 127; 157 and 154 at Perth Ground; 165 and 161 in Brisbane. Only three times in 55 games here have teams crossed 200 runs.
Incidentally, none of the top 10 batsmen in the T20 cricket rankings, including the incumbent Mohammad Rizwan, have hit an uncontrolled six. Rather, they are all mixed and more versatile than mere six-hitters. Apart from Suryakumar Yadav, all the top five are all format batsmen.
Not much difference between 2007 and 2021 World Cup. Some of the game-changers in this span weren’t just six-hitters. For example, Thilakaratna Dilshan, who captained Sri Lanka in the final, scored 303 runs (highest scorer in the tournament) at a strike rate of 144. But he hit just three sixes. His opening pair, Sanath Jayasuriya, scored twice as many. But his match strike rate was 115. Over the years it has included many batsmen like Jayawardene, Kevin Pietersen, Mike Hussey, Kumar Sangakkara, Kohli, Azam and Marlon Samuels. They have high strike rates despite not wanting to hit sixes every ball. Pietersen, in fact, hit a six off 26 balls. Chris Gayle hits every 11th ball he faces in T20Is for a six. Still, Pietersen’s strike rate in T20Is is 141; Gayle’s strike rate is 137. Here the myth of sixes is debunked.
Many of the so-called steady players, interestingly, have better strike rates than six-hitters. For example, Kohli has scored 138 runs off 100 balls. This is better than Rowman Powell (135), Chris Gayle (137) and Eoin Morgan (136).
Hitting a six is really an asset, no stroke has the best value, but it shouldn’t be the only one to be comfortable with. A major criticism of Brathwaite and the like is their pathetic consistency. Brathwaite hit sixes on a pitch like Eden Gardens, very few and far between. That was far less than the last time he played for his team in 2019. His runs were so low that he went unsold in the 2020 auction. He has not been considered by any other IPL franchise since then. The numbers justify it. For all his sixes and stunners, he averages 14.76 in 41 T20s and 15.9 in 238 T20s.
Like Australia’s Chris Lynn (19.40), Andre Russell (19.50), who has reinvented himself as a bowling all-rounder, Pakistan’s Asif Ali (15.3) to name a few, but some top-class six-hitting wonders shine through from time to time. India, wisely, resisted the temptation to pack their team with Rahul Dewadia hitting sixes as seamlessly as they came. Perhaps, his inconsistency was a risk.
In their games, though they all seem powerful, such moments rarely come. Most international teams realize that and use more diverse batsmen in the squad. Brathwaite was Hercules that night. He remembered only that night. Not throughout his cricketing career.
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