SRH vs MI run-fest: T20 cricket’s ‘434-438’ moment
(LEFT) Power-hitting coach Julian Wood; Sunrisers Hyderabad batters Heinrich Klaasen and Aiden Markram after their devastating partnership in the IPL 2024 T20 game against the Mumbai Indians. (Photos: Instagram via batpowerguru; PTI)
Here’s a dystopia for all you cricket bowling aficionados. It’s IPL 50. Your icons are no longer around. None of their kind is. A fully AI-automated bowling machine that can simulate all their deliveries for different situations – in powerplay or death overs, after snapping a wicket or being pumped for six, against a pinch hitter or a number 10 – stands in their stead. A lifeless piece of machinery, with no over-the-top reactions after getting clobbered for boundaries. The batters are all that everyone’s talking about. “No, not at all. No. No. No. It’s batter against the bowler, always,” Julian Wood, the power-hitting coach, can’t see it happening.
The new heights of what a team total in T20 may look like don’t surprise Wood. “I don’t think there’s any sport in the world that improves as quickly as batting does in T20 cricket.” All the more reason, he believes, power hitting shouldn’t be reduced to a mere exercise of opening the front leg and having a swing at the ball. READ MORE
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