Unlike at the World T20 championships, where there was a vast difference in talent between the competing nations, the IPL consists of eight fairly evenly matched teams and it is the first time that a healthy percentage of the world’s best cricketers have collectively played the T20 format consistently on a day to day basis. Although the Indian Premier League is yet to reach the halfway mark of the initial league stage, successful strategies and dominant patterns are emerging from the chaos.

It is evident that the same basics apply for the shortened format as they do in longer versions of the game and much of the early theories concerning team balance have proved less than sapient. As the game developed professionally in the UK it was thought that stacking the batting with middling allrounders was a successful strategy and while it may have had some merit in the less intense atmosphere of County cricket, at the higher stress levels expressed in the IPL these sorts of players are more hinderance than help.

Players, even with reputations like Andrew Symonds, whilst making significant contributions with bat, have been found wanting when bowling. Every over is important in such a concentrated format and it is patently clear that specialist batsman and bowlers are far more important to a team’s fortunes than wannabe allrounders.

Obviously there are some true allrounders displaying their wares in India and these players are faring well. Irfan Pathan, Dwayne Bravo and Shane Watson have all contributed with bat and ball yet like in red ball cricket these sorts of players are rare and priceless. Effectively they are two players in one and they allow the captain added flexibility in terms of selection and match strategy.

It shouldn’t surprise that both Pathan’s and Watson’s teams are compiling impressive winning streaks and since Bravo’s arrival at Mumbai they too are improving and winning. Allrounders are indeed valuable in T20 cricket but a batsman that isn’t a top notch bowler can’t suddenly become effective because of the shortened format. In fact, it appears that the shorter game accentuates and exposes their limitations.

The new ball battle between the top-order batsman and the opposition’s opening bowlers, like in every form of cricket, is of the utmost importance with most matches won and lost in the first six overs when the initial fielding restrictions apply. This emphasises the need to have, like in other forms of cricket, at least four specialist bowlers and considering that partnerships generated between overs nine and sixteen have also been important factors in winning, at least five specialist batsman, preferably six.

So for all the intended and anticipated innovation that T20 cricket was expected to bring, the result from the first three weeks is that cricket is much the same as it has always been. Sure there have been more boundaries but the batsman with the best techniques and hand to eye coordination score the majority of runs, the clever bowlers who can bowl a length and can extract seam, swing, drift and spin take the wickets, the intelligent, innovative captains win more than they lose and the better fielding units excite with their athleticism, energy and skill.

The much hyped revolution, if there is one, must be taking place off the field. For on the arena, the same cricketing principles apply for success. Cricket is an ancient, much studied game and the Indian Premier League has done nothing more than successfully market the reinvention of the wheel. To be fair, it is a fast, colourful and disposable wheel but nonetheless essentially the same perdurable wheel that the legendary shepherds of the Weald began rolling many long centuries ago.

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