International cricket is a batsman's game, but in increasingly loud voices, bowlers are having their say. Between the inaugural edition of the World Twenty20 championships in South Africa and this one in England, the game itself has undergone a big change.
The highest team total going into the final in this edition is South Africa's 211/5 versus Scotland; in 2007 it was 260/6 scored by Sri Lanka against Kenya.
The highest individual score in this edition, going into the final, was Tillakaratne Dilshan's 96 off 57. In the first edition, it was Chris Gayle's explosive 117 off 57. The best bowling figures of this edition - Umar Gul's five for six . In 2007 4/7 from New Zealand's Mark Gillespie.
Have the pitches been harder to play on? Have batsmen been out of form? Or is it just that the bowlers have figured the game out?
While the conditions this time have suited fast bowlers a fair bit with the ball darting around especially in the games that have been played under heavy cloud cover. Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara reckons the time when this format was considered the death of bowlers is past. "Bowlers have realised that they have a big role to play in T20. The attention is always on the batsmen who have to go for the big hits all the time, but one good spell can win a match."
Even Younus Khan, the Pakistan captain agrees. "If you have good spinners in your XI, you will do well in this format. Shahid (Afridi) and Saeed (Ajmal) have been in great form and they have put pressure on the batsmen in the middle overs." There have been a fair number of tricks that have been on display.
One of them, which the English pacers used to good effect, was the wide yorker. With batsmen increasingly playing the paddle sweep, irrespective of the pace at which deliveries are being bowled, Stuart Broad and Co packed the off-side field and changed their line. There have been a couple of debates on whether this qualifies as negative tactics. The chances of a batsman beating point and still splitting the sweeper and third man are far less than him squeezing one past short fine-leg.
Another delivery that has made an impact is the slow bouncer, used to great effect by the tournament's two most prominent slingers - Lasith Malinga and Fidel Edwards. The length stays short, but with fingers rolled across the seam, the pace is completely taken off the delivery. Edwards, who normally bowls upward of 140 kmph, bowled some of his bouncers at 120 kmph or less. In most cases, the batsmen were through with the shot well before the ball had reached them. "They bowled the bouncers really well," Dhoni had said after they had gone down to the West Indies. "They were using short deliveries, and at the same time mixing it up with slower bouncers. It gives the batsmen very little time to adjust."
The batsmen, though, will adjust. Dilshan, the tournament's leading run-getter by a distance, has been the most successful with his experiments. His trademark shot is less a paddle and more a scoop, many of them going straight over his head as opposed to the more traditional (if you can call it that) version that's being played.
South African coach Mickey Arthur said Herschelle Gibbs had been working on a couple of tricks of his own. "He doesn't want to be part of the pack," he said last week. "He doesn't want to be outdone by the Dilshans. He'll bring it out soon, hopefully in the final," Arthur had said. Well, that didn't go very well, did it?
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