How much is too much?
Notes from Week One of IPL 2025... And if you don't know the result of the 1979 World Cup final, the piece below contains spoilers.
On 23 June 1979 at Lord’s, West Indies played England in the second-ever men’s World Cup final. West Indies batted first and made 286 from their allocation of 60 overs. It wasn’t quite the highest score in a World Cup game: during the inaugural 1975 edition England had made 334, also at Lord’s, this time against India, whose response was a glorious go-slow, so ridiculous was the idea of chasing that many runs. Sunil Gavaskar treated the crowd to an innings of 36 not out as he batted through the entire 60 overs. India made 132-3.
Four years on, England’s response was not a go-slow per se, or certainly not a deliberate one, more of an acknowledgement of an obvious truth: they knew they weren’t going to win. What’s more, West Indies knew that England knew they weren’t going to win. And England knew that West Indies knew that England knew they weren’t going to win. And they didn’t, they were beaten by 92 runs.
As a measure of the antiquity of those far-off days, that game was the first time that Geoffrey Boycott wore a helmet while batting. In most un-Boycott like fashion, he hadn’t spent months netting in one and preparing himself. He put it on in the dressing room minutes before he walked out, and the reason he did so wasn’t because he felt threatened by the West Indies attack, who he had faced many times, but because not wearing one would have made him more of a target in a format which didn’t yet limit the amount of bouncers that could be bowled beyond the discretion of the umpires. Boycott and Brearley put on 129 for the first wicket against Holding, Roberts, Croft and Garner, at which point England needed 157 from 21 overs with Randall, Gooch, Gower, Botham and Larkins still to bat. Everyone in the ground knew that was impossible.
Last Sunday in Hyderbad, Sunrisers batted first against Rajasthan Royals and also made 286, but this time from 20 overs. It’s a big score but not the biggest. Its real meaning is that it didn’t feel weird. In fact it felt normal, logical even. It was the high-standard execution of a mindset that says enough is never enough. Each of the first six batters had a strike rate above 200. The odd mishit dropped into space rather than the hands of fielders. Whatever luck there was went SRH’s way. A score of 286 from 120 deliveries now represents what an elite-level batting line-up scoring runs on a flat pitch looks like.
A TV fan poll asked, ‘will there be a score of 300+ in IPL 2025?’
The answer is, yeah probably. And if not now, then soon.
Each year when it starts, it’s a reminder that the IPL is where cricket is at, the point of the arrow. Forget your legacy formats, your Ashes, your rather dreary Champions Trophy that India just won. Forget your World Cups. Forget your other franchise leagues and don’t mention the kids’ tea party that is the Hundred. This is it. There is an intensity here that doesn’t exist elsewhere, a sense of heightened reality concentrated into weeks. The fierceness is palpable, so is the money and so is the opportunity. This is the cricket that changes lives and everyone wants that.
The game has an Overton Window and it is the IPL. You forget that fact until it appears again each spring. A competition that should essentially be a meaningless confection begun by a loveable billionaire bandit is the most meaningful in the sport. It is the sharpest edge, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it – it’s true anyway.
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One other thing about ‘79. The great Boycott told me that he had asked Ian Botham how to go about scoring runs off Joel Garner, who was Botham’s team-mate at Somerset. “You don’t,” Botham said. “No-one does.”
That was the extent of the available analysis.
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Also from the SRH-RR game: Jofra Archer posted the worst bowling figures in IPL history. What has happened? My Botham-style analysis, which I’m sure could be shot down by the stattos, is that Jofra hasn’t caught back up with a game that he in effect left a couple of years ago. His spells always start with a full pace delivery aimed at the top of the stumps. Always. Guys hit those now. His great strength was an unsettling bouncer that was hard to pick up and hit a lot of people. He seems robbed of that, in part because to bowl it he has to risk bowling a wide because of height. So he delivers a lot of slower, lower bouncers that get swatted or top edged. He doesn’t bowl with much variety. Where’s the nip backer he had, or the Yorker? Does he use the width of the crease? Does he have enough variation of slower balls? Where in the innings is he most effective? What is his go-to delivery when he has been hit for a couple of boundaries? Questions come hard and fast out in the middle…
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The other great thing about the IPL restart is all those guys you’ve not seen for a year (well, if you’re not in India watching TV adverts). Some of the batting orders are like A Weekend At Bernie’s. MS Dhoni! How old is that guy now? Still keeping wicket, tho. Still coming in with six needed wearing his funny pads (apparently this happened eight times last IPL, and again in his first match of this edition. It’s almost like it’s fixed - which obviously it isn’t). And Sunil Narine! How old is that guy now? Still the best terrible batter in the game. Absolute hacker, but great to see him anyway. And Faf Duplessis! How old is that guy now? Still got the triceps, even though he’s had them tattooed over. And Ravi Ashwin too! That guy used to play in every cricket match I watched. He’s not even 40 yet, so probably shouldn’t even be in this section, but it’s great to see him.
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Something about the IPL sends everyone else nuts, especially after a few drinks. The ECB want to use the Hundred money to build an indoor stadium somewhere up North to play five-day cricket all-year round. Sky Sports aren’t that desperate for Test cricket that clashes perfectly with the football season, but don’t let that stop you. We want to see it. We want to sit inside it – so long as it’s heated and doesn’t look like an undercover car park. We want to watch Australia dragged over here DURING THEIR SUMMER for a one-off Test, no even better, five Tests under one massively expensive enormodome during insubstantial daylight hours with rain hammering on the roof like the thunder of the gods.
Meanwhile the Saudis want some strange kind of travelling World League with IPL teams, or something. No-one really seems to know, but given what they’ve done in boxing, golf, football, snooker and the rest, cricket wants some of that Saudi money, that delicious desert cash pie that’s getting handed around. It’s probably not good news for the Hundred, but then they’ve already got their money, haven’t they. They’re building an indoor stadium, apparently. Look upon it ye mighty...
157 off 21 against the Windies attack of ‘79. Who’s you’re money on Jon?
I will always be convinced that Clive Lloyd deliberately dropped Boycott in that ‘79 World Cup final. It was an absolute sitter. But far better to keep Geoffrey in than to give Gower and Gooch a chance of getting England back into it.