IPL, and the journey from instinct to data mining

Since the first IPL match in 2008, many things have changed tactically. As Tim Wigmore and Freddie Wilde say in their excellent book Cricket 2.0, “in T20 it is possible for a batsman to make a large number of runs while harming his team’s chances of winning.” Such thinking is commonplace now, ever since coaches began to pay more attention to data. The coach who told Learie Constantine that his feet were positioned wrongly and his shoulder pointed in the wrong direction had, in the reckoning of the classicists, done the right thing despite Constantine’s response, “but see where the ball went.” For long, youngsters wondered if it was better to attempt the perfect off drive that would be stopped at mid-off or heave the ball over mid-wicket even if they ended up looking uncomfortable. IPL is the epitome of the T20 game because it sees the finest players from around the world, unlike similar tournaments which don’t have current India players. Whoever wins IPL’s opening match on Saturday would have contributed even more data to the kitty, and it will be the job of the backroom boys to sift the vital from the merely incidental.