IPL 2025: Can saliva, ball-change make it an even playing field this season?

It’s that time of year again. The likes of Shreya Ghoshal, Disha Patani and Karan Aujla will usher in IPL (Indian Premier League) 2025 with all the glitz and glam of a Bollywood gig at Kolkata's Eden Gardens on Saturday, rain gods permitting, but isn’t there a need to reinvent the wheel to make it a little more of a level-playing field between bat and ball?

There certainly is, because the heavy bats, the 'impact player' rule and the outrageous shot-making even by T20 standards have made life miserable for bowlers in this competition. The highest team total in an innings last season was a monstrous 287/3 by Sunrisers Hyderabad, while there were as many as eight 250-plus totals in the course of the competition. Hence, Gujarat Titans skipper Shubman Gill was not really off the mark when he said 300-plus totals could be the next benchmark.

There is no doubt that crowds throng the matches largely to see sixes and fours rain down, but as with life itself, too much of a good thing can often lead to saturation. Thankfully, the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) and the IPL governing council tried to address this issue with two significant rule changes on Thursday — though only time will tell how much of an impact they will have on the proceedings.

The first one is revoking the saliva ban on bowlers, which was in force as per the ICC's (International Cricket Council) global guidelines since the Covid pandemic. But the more radical rule is that a ball-change will be allowed in the second innings of night games to counter the dew factor.

After the 11th over of the chase, the ball can be replaced with a scruffed-yet-dry one at the umpires’ discretion. The fielding team can appeal to the umpire too for a change of ball, but it will be up to the umpires to assess the conditions and either agree or disagree.

Both the rule changes are meant to make the life a little easier for bowlers, though the first one certainly looks somewhat hurried, prompted by senior India paceman Mohammed Shami’s public appeal during the recent ICC Champions Trophy.

Shami’s contention, later backed by the likes of Tim Southee, to allow the bowlers to use saliva once again to retain the shine on the ball to derive some reverse swing when the ball is little more scuffed up, was more in the context of the 50-over game or Tests. The idea of getting reverse swing in the shortest format is a little far-fetched, but now that the IPL is doing away with the ban, the ICC may also follow suit sooner or later.

Lending his bit to the contentious issue, T.A. Sekar, the pace bowling guru formerly associated with Dennis Lillee’s MRF Foundation and now with Mumbai Indians, told National Herald: ‘’In IPL, there is hardly any reverse swing. Some well known England bowlers have done it but I don’t want to take names here, by applying mint or some lozenges like Alpenliebe which contain a chemical which helped retain the shine.’’

The use of a second ball from the 11th over seems to have wider implications, as there have been past experiences of fielding sides suffering, with the dew factor making lives difficult for bowlers, especially spinners. Backing the move, Andy Flower, the head coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore said at the Eden: ''I like the rule change on the captains electing when they can take a second ball in the second half of the innings. I've always wondered why there was this reticence on the umpires' part to change the ball to make it an even and fair contest. And that's what we are looking for.''

When India went out of the 2016 T20 World Cup in the semi-final against the West Indies in Mumbai, then captain M.S. Dhoni laid the blame squarely on the dew factor in the second innings. “A bad toss to lose. So, when they started batting the first few overs were fine, but after that there was a considerable amount of dew which meant the spinners couldn’t bowl as they would have liked to,” Dhoni had said then.

Indian bowlers faced the same problem in another World T20 game in Dubai in 2021, when Pakistan openers Babar Azam and Mohammed Rizwan raced to the target for a rare win against India in ICC events.

All 10 captains had a buy-in with the two changes in the hope that the IPL sees an even battle between bat and ball. The time is ripe for it, or else the glitzy league faces the risk of turning into a mindless run-fest.