A file photo from IPL 2026© AFP
Legendary Indian cricket team batter Sunil Gavaskar came up with a bold idea to level the playing field for batters and bowlers amid the massive run-fest in the ongoing IPL 2026. We are a bit more than half-way into the season and the IPL 2026 has already seen 46 200-plus scores with Sunrisers Hyderabad achieving the feat 8 times. At least one team has crossed 200 a stunning 26 times while on 20 occasions, both sides breached the 200-run mark. Gavaskar believes that a rule should be implemented where bowler could be allowed to bowl five overs in a match if the team deems fit. He explained that although bowlers can only bowl 4 overs, an extra over can be rewarded so that the team can keep using their best bowlers.
“The restriction of only four overs to a bowler could be looked at again. If a batter can bat the entire 20 overs, why can’t a bowler who gets, say, three wickets in his four overs be allowed to bowl another over as a reward for getting those wickets? This way teams will also try getting wickets instead of trying only to save runs being scored. After all, the best dot ball is the wicket-taking dot ball, isn’t it? Yes, you could conceivably have three bowlers getting three wickets and an extra over each,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid-Day.
“That would even up the playing field a fair bit in a format where just about everything is stacked against the bowlers. Look at the small boundaries, the strict interpretation of the wide for a bouncer going marginally over the batter’s head and such like. So, giving the bowlers and the fielding captain an incentive to take wickets and not just be defensive from the first ball, would be something worth trying out.”
Gavaskar said that the new rule can be first implemented on the domestic level before trying it out in the IPL.
“As with every new playing condition, it can be trialled in the many city leagues that are coming up. Then, in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and then, if found that it does level a format which is more batting friendly then it could be used in the next year’s IPL or maybe in the next cycle of IPL starting from 2028,” added the batting legend.
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