The common thread, irrespective of the result and the venue, in the first IPL 15 matches has been the prolonged duration of the matches. In fact, so slow have the matches been that most games this season have ended close to midnight instead of the scheduled 11.30 p.m. finish.
Stephen Fleming, the Chennai Super Kings head coach, admitted that delayed finishes defeats the purpose of T20 and said a “collective shift” from all the stakeholders is to ensure the games to end on time and not take spectators — on the ground and on television — for a ride.
“Yeah, it’s too slow. I think it’s got to be a collective shift from everybody, players as well as on-field monitoring. There’s a little bit of broadcasting as well. There are times when you are waiting to come back, so as a collective, the whole thing can be sped up,” said Fleming said after CSK’s loss late on Wednesday night, with the last ball being bowled at 11.54 p.m.
Australian statistician Ric Finlay has concluded that the average duration of an IPL innings is 106 minutes, eight and 21 minutes slower than that of a T20 international and England’s t20 Blast, respectively.
Fleming stressed the need for cricket as a sport to speed things up. “I think cricket in general is played at a pace below where it needs to be, so I would like to see all forms of the game increase the pace. If that puts more pressure on captains and bowlers, then so be it,” Fleming said.
“How do you do that? You manage on-field a little bit more strictly and ask a little bit more of captains and bowlers to be more sure of their plans. If we are reaching close to four overs, then we are defeating the purpose of a short game.”