Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020: Records To Be Broken!

Fingers crossed! If everything goes off well for the next 53 days, we can say that even the pandemic Covid 19 -also called the Wuhan Virus- could not halt the triumphant march of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The 13 th edition of what is arguably the richest cricket tournament in the world is being played in the UAE this year. From September 19 to November 10, 2020. Being one of those die hard cricket fans, I must have seen most of the matches- on television of course- since the inaugural match at our own Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru way back in 2008.

For the statistically inclined cricket fan , the IPL is a delight. Records are created and records are broken with regularity. Every year the standards of the game go up, especially in the fielding and catching. The batsmen and bowlers too strive to master something new and innovative to beat their opponents.

Today’s blog post is written with the millions of record tracking cricket fans in mind. All data is taken from the IPL website . Let’s see how many of these records will get beaten in this year’s IPL, even without the customary roar of supporting crowds to egg on the players!

With 5412 runs, Virat Kohli, the skipper of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, (which, by the way, is the team I support) is far ahead of the others as the man with the most number of IPL runs under his belt. I don’t see Rohit Sharma go past him this year as he is 500 runs behind. I wonder if anyone will beat Kohli’s record for the most runs in one season- 973 in the 2016 edition with 4 centuries and 7 fifties. The record for the most wickets for a IPL season is held by Dwayne Bravo, who took a staggering 32 wickets in 2013.

I don’t expect the records for sixers to be broken this time around. Chris Gayle has a total of 326 sixers while De Villiers the man next is way behind with 212! Gayle also holds the record of most sixers in an innings (17) with 13 being the next highest. The record for the highest individual innings also belongs to Gayle: 175. I hope someone breaks it this year! I don’t foresee anyone beating Andre Russell’s overall strike rate of 186. Likewise, Chris Morris’s 38 runs in 9 balls to give him the best innings strike rate of 422 will take some beating!!

The fastest 50 record belongs to K L Rahul ( 51 off 14 balls). Some explosive batting like this could well happen this year. Let’s hope so for the sake of the game. Gayle scored the fastest 100 – in 30 balls. I am not sure if anyone will better this in 2020.

In the bowling department, Lasith Malinga’s overall tally of 170 wickets could well be broken this year as he himself is not playing. The best figures for an innings of 6 wickets for 12 runs by Alzarri Joseph is up for the grabs though only two others have ever taken 6 wickets in an innings like him so far in the history of the IPL. Rashid Khan has the best overall economy rate of 6.55 in 45 matches. One record that I wish will be broken is for the most expensive spell ever : 4 overs for 70 runs by Basil Thampi, an average of 17 runs per over!

In the inaugural match of IPL 2020 yesterday, we saw Piyush Chawla don the CSK colors for the first time, after being so used to seeing him for Punjab and KKR . But in the record for playing for most number of franchises, he is far, far behind! You may know that 4 players ( Dinesh Karthik, Parthiv Patel, Ishant Sharma, and Thisara Perera) have played for 6 different franchisees. But “their baap” – as we would say in India – the eternal traveller- has to be Aaron Finch. The Aussie, who has already passed through 7, will be playing for his 8th franchisee when he turns out for RCB this year! I hope he performs better than ever before!!

So let’s get down to the game and hope IPL 2020, despite all the problems, will provide us with some fabulous entertainment!