Bowlers have some catching up to do in T20 cricket: Dravid

World Cup winning former India head coach Rahul Dravid said the grammar of T20 batting has undergone a complete metamorphosis of late and bowlers have some serious “catching up to do.”

Dravid, who guided India to its second T20 World Cup triumph in 2024 in the Caribbean, is marvelled at how the young guns like Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ayush Mhatre, Priyansh Arya along with world’s No. 1 ranked T20 batter Abhishek Sharma have entirely changed the approach in the Powerplay overs.

“In a sense, to see the quality of batting that has happened over the last two or three years, I think the bowlers in that format of the game will slowly have to do some catching up,” Dravid told PTI in an exclusive interview from Dublin, where he was unveiled as the owner of European T20 Premier League (ETPL)’s Dublin franchise.

The former India skipper and one of India’s most respected coaches raved about how batters are now hitting boundaries to parts of the ground which earlier seemed out of bounds.

“I think batsmanship and the ability to hit sixes and to access different parts of the ground has certainly improved leaps and bounds.

“Bowlers will have to keep working on their skills and keep developing. I am sure, some of them will be able to still stand out and hold their own,” said Dravid, who has coached IPL teams like Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Capitals.

However, he had no hesitation in admitting modern batters have adapted to the requirements of the T20 game better than the bowlers. However, Dravid was confident of a change.

“I think if you look at it in terms of balance, probably a lot more batsmen are able to cope with the requirements of the modern T20 game than, say, some of the bowlers have been able to at this point of time. That may change in two or three years,” he added.

The scenario is, however, a bit different in Test matches where bowlers have had the upper hand in consistently producing result-oriented games.

“I mean, if you look at Test cricket today, nearly every Test match produces a result. So, I think bowlers are probably holding the sway in some of the Test matches that we are seeing.”

“You know, two-day matches, three-day matches. So, bowlers have started holding the sway in Test cricket.”

“So, it will be interesting to see over the next couple of years if bowlers are able to pull this back a little bit in T20s,” Dravid said.

But is it possible for bowlers to pull things back if the pitches are as flat as they have been in recent times? Dravid agreed that some help is needed for the bowlers.

“They may need a little bit of support, and I think the way is probably to have a little more challenging wickets to ensure that there is something in it for the bowlers, whether it is the tracks that turn or whether it is a little bit more pace and bounce that gives the bowlers a little bit more of a chance.”

“Because I don’t think we can increase the size of the boundaries and already there is no space to go and increase the size of the boundaries,” Dravid put forth his take.

Asked if two bouncers per over could be a logical solution, Dravid didn’t want to get into specifics.

“I mean, I think anything that might make it a little bit more…give the bowlers a little bit more of a chance. But I still think that in the next couple of years we may see bowlers bounce back a little bit and start getting a little bit more of a swing.”

“There is always this balance, and there are times when the bat holds the sway as we are seeing at the moment in white ball cricket and maybe in red ball cricket we are seeing the ball hold the sway a little bit.”

But Dravid also doesn’t want the game to be too skewed in favour of either batters or bowlers.

“I think at some stage we don’t want the balance to be too skewed either way, either on the side of the batsmen or the side of the bowlers,” he said.