A hitting streak that can not be ignored

Glenn Maxwell’s dominance has attracted at least one fan to follow the Indian Premier League after the action shifted from the UAE back to India.

Kings XI Punjab’s Glenn Maxwell, left, keeps hitting sixes to power Punjab to the top. Ravindranath K / The National

At some point, you figure it has to end, right, this ridiculous streak? If not the magnitude of the scores he is getting, then at least the pace at which they are being made.

I am not a regular watcher of the Indian Premier League (IPL). This season, when it opened in the UAE and played its first 20 games here, was the first time I have covered the league as a journalist. When it went back to India, I thought that would be that.

I would continue to dip in and out of it, of course, maybe catch the qualifiers and the final. But I would not really follow it game by game, player by player, innings by innings and spell by spell. Quite apart from anything, there is just so much of it in such a short space of time, but stretched out over nearly two months, that viewer fatigue takes over.

It is also staged in the format that I am least fanatical about, so it is easy to let pass by. But this season, even after the league left the UAE, I have tuned in, even if it is only to see whether that ridiculous streak of form has, or will, end.

The owner of said streak is Glenn Maxwell. The streak, 10 matches into the IPL season, reads thus (balls faced are bracketed): 95 (43), 89 (45), 95 (43), 15 (12), 6 (6), 45 (27), 90 (38), 25 (11), 14 (14), 43 (22). All told, that is 517 runs off 261 balls.

He has hit one six for every eight balls faced. He has hit pretty much every third ball he has faced for either four or six.

Forget ridiculous, because that can also be used to describe Vijay Mallya’s haircut. To have sustained such a streak for even this long is abnormal, and it actually extends beyond IPL play. It goes back to a spectacular, though brief, burst in Australia’s first-class competition earlier this winter, the highlight of which was 127 against New South Wales in a total of just 186, Maxwell having arrived at 9 for six.

The thing is, ideologically, I am a bowler, so the format and the IPL are aggravating because they abbreviate the contribution of the bowler, reducing his role to one mostly of run-containing. The balance is tipped so far toward the batsman, not only does it distort any natural sense of equality and justice, it actually reduces the feats of batsmanship itself.

Of course, batsmen switch hit and play reverse shots. Of course, they hit more sixes than ever before. Of course, they score quicker and bat with less fear. That has to be the new normal, the new ordinary, if that is the way cricket is going.

But every now and again, there comes such a feat of run-scoring and boundary-hitting that, despite siding with bowlers, despite the ingrained cynicism from watching poor-quality Twenty20 leagues stuffed with mediocre bowling and small boundaries, it is impossible to not be hooked.

Tuning in to the IPL specifically to watch Maxwell still feels a little like tuning into a talent-reality show. In my case, at least, both are done against better judgement, fuelled only by that gene all humans have that demands such tacky, unreal spectacles need watching.

And Maxwell’s feats have been so fantastical that, at a very basic level, you wonder whether it is good for the game, as much as you wonder at what he has done. Such dominance of one discipline over the other immediately calls into question the very point of any sport.

But by itself, it is impossible not to watch him. Though they are very different to Maxwell and each other, a similar compulsion often existed to watch Virender Sehwag, Chris Gayle and Shahid Afridi. These were batsmen whose hitting knew extraordinary scope.

Whether it was by the size of the sixes Afridi and Gayle hit, or the regularity with which all three found boundaries once they hit one in an over, or in sustaining the boundary-hitting displays over long periods, cricket’s imbalance toward the bat never felt that offensive with them. So it is with Maxwell currently.

Perhaps it is the endlessness of the IPL that has helped Maxwell. Just as Virat Kohli is discovering that it is difficult to get out of a bad run, because the league never ends once it is on, Maxwell might be discovering the opposite. Once you are in a good place, there is simply not enough mental, spiritual or physical respite in the IPL to knock you out of that zone.

It is almost immaterial currently that he even plays for a team, so singular has he – and his feats – been.

But tonight, as he – and Kings XI Punjab – take on the Delhi Daredevils, I will tune in. It may not feel right, but boy, is it impossible to ignore.

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