How India's T20 batting in domestic cricket hit six in 2024 | Cricket news

Amid this uncertainty, 2024 was also the year when India fully embraced T20 batting.

While the senior team was wrapping up a series in South Africa after winning the World Cup, India's T20 season had already started with the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT). The main takeaway from the 133-match tournament was that most batsmen discovered new methods and abilities to hit big shots.

DNA dynamics

The seeds of the tectonic shift were sown with the introduction of the Impact Sub Rule in SMAT in 2022. The BCCI's quest to increase the entertainment factor of the IPL may have been a reason. Since then, scoring rates have risen astonishingly, with the entire system adopting the philosophy. Muscle memory is starting to dictate instincts, so much so that the elimination of the Impact Sub rule during the 2024 SMAT hasn't slowed the six-hit wave.

A cursory progression is telling:

SMAT (Overall League Batting SR) – 2022: 116.87 in 131 matches; 2023: 127.82 out of 131; 2024: 135.54 in 133 (highest ever)

IPL (Overall League Bat SR) – 2022: 133.94 in 74 meters; 2023: 141.71 out of 74; 2024: 150.58 in 72 (highest ever).

The impact player rule has completely changed the mentality. Even though we don't have that rule in SMAT (now), the tendency for all players is to excel from ball one. When you have that kind of belief, it gives you that boost that you can get in every delivery, Mumbai's title-winning skipper Shreyas Iyer told The Indian Express in an Idea Exchange interaction.

Genesis

Witnessing the proliferation of big knocks in the IPL, Jaydev Unadkat took home a few insights, from Sunrisers Hyderabad to Rajkot, to prepare for the metamorphosis that has blanketed the domestic structure.

Although Punjab set the tone last season, hitting a record 114 sixes in 10 matches to win their maiden SMAT title, they were outpaced in their own match this year. As many as 21 of the 38 participating teams scored over Punjab, who hit just 47 sixes in seven matches this time.

A Ranji Trophy power for the past five years, Saurashtra have significantly reinvented their T20 game to emerge as one of the top five batting sides of the past few editions.

Unadkat underlines an important cultural shift in coaching, leadership and the new-age batsman. It used to be that first-class cricket was the main target for a domestic start, but that is changing. Almost every team has two or three batters and probably one or two bowlers who are T20 specialists. And they practice power hitting all year round.

Even if they are not selected for the Ranji Trophy, they might be good enough to be picked in the IPL with the scouts around. A person who plays a blinder and scores 50 runs from 18 balls gets selected by an IPL team. That is why people now believe that they can make a career just by pursuing white ball cricket. Those who do work on power-hitting all year long, Unadkat explains.

Domestic captains and coaches also act as scouting weapons for new whiteballers. Unadkat signed 24-year-old Ruchit Ahir from the Saurashtra Premier League in 2023. After almost a year of working in the shadows, Ahir was among the 157 SMAT debutants this season.

While Ahir turned quick fifties in his second and third appearances against Baroda and Tamil Nadu respectively, Saurashtra amassed two of their highest T20 totals, 266 and 233.

Record blitz

Thirty-seven totals over 200 were achieved during the tournament. Baroda shattered the world record with a brutal 349/5 assault on Sikkim with 37 sixes in their final group match to increase the net run rate and qualify for the knockouts. On the same day, Mumbai smashed a target of 230 runs in the highest successful SMAT chase with Andhra and Kerala finishing at the top of their group.

With a powerful batting line-up and a mediocre bowling attack, the chase would be at the heart of Mumbai's knockout plans. Iyer's men put up another 220-plus points in the quarter-finals before beating Baroda and Madhya Pradesh in chases to win their second title in three editions.

Mumbai almost took bowling out of the strategy. Of the eight quarter-finalists, they had the worst bowling economy, at 9 runs per over. However, the bats of Ajinkya Rahane, Suryakumar Yadav, Iyer, Shivam Dube and rookie Suryansh Shedge ensured they had plenty of firepower, averaging 10.42 runs per over, the best among the last eight.

You have great depth in the batting line-up. Players can come in and go crazy from ball one. That has boosted the confidence of many batsmen. And the change is inevitable. You have no control over batsmen's emotions. If as a batsman you personally feel that you can take on any bowler, then just go for it, Iyer said.

The bug even affected veteran Rahane. He was the unlikely top of the SMAT batting charts, finishing with 469 runs, a strike rate of 164.56 and 19 sixes. As he himself would put it, this avatar was a product of an expansion of my defenses, an expansion of the senses.

Unadkat agrees. In the previous generation there was fear of coming out. What if we try to hit two sixes in a row, come out and get scolded by the coach? That has now disappeared into the younger lot. I saw this was part of SRH last season. If the wicket is good and the ball lands nicely on the bat, 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 noticed Ruchit and several other players in the regional league. Last year he played a blinding knock in SPL and that's when I first noticed him. He didn't play red-ball cricket. He has only played white ball for the U23 team and came straight to the T20 side on the strength of that one knock, says the left-arm bowler.

Ahir finished with 14 sixes in five innings, the highest for Saurashtra in this SMAT edition.

Slippery slope

Similar selections have been seen on many sides, says Unadkat, who also warns of a somewhat precarious trajectory ahead. The Cheteshwar Pujaras did not flood the circuit as quickly as the Ruchit Ahirs.

Many of these players do not even try to change their game as per the demands of red ball cricket. That's a big shift in domestic cricket in general. Whether it is detrimental to red ball cricket or not, I guess we will have to wait and see in the coming years, notes Unadkat.

New heroes

While this is a potentially growing concern, India would do well to reflect on their T20I performance as they approach their world title defense. With the 2026 World Cup likely to host the majority of matches on India's fast-scoring ground, they would do well to maintain the pace they have built in the format.

India's T20I year culminated with a total runs per over of 9.55, building on 9.23 in 2023 and 9.20 in 2022. After winning the T20 World Cup in June, India's new-age heroes have taken up the mantle . In just five months, Indians have scored six centuries in T20Is and their highest total is a colossal 297 against Bangladesh in Hyderabad.

The brilliance of Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma and Sanju Samson over the past few months will be difficult to ignore even if a few all-format regulars return after Test and ODI assignments.

Major Indian 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 nation

1,855: Sixes in SMAT 2024-25, the most in any recognized T20 competition.

14: Most hundreds in a SMAT season

3: Sanju Samson became the first T20I batsman to record three centuries in a year.

3: Tilak Varma became the first T20 batsman to hit hundreds in three consecutive matches.

151: Tilak Varma became the first Indian man to achieve a T20 score above 150.

87: Abhishek Sharma registered the most T20 sixes by an Indian in a calendar year.

28: Abhishek Sharma and Gujarat's Urvil Patel recorded the Indians' joint fastest T20 hundreds, off 28 balls, the second fastest in the world.

349/5: Baroda's world record T20 score against Sikkim also included a record 37 sixes.