The first half has seen a batting bounty unlike any in six previous seasons but it is all likely to change with the tournament now moving to Lahore
Osman Samiuddin and Shiva Jayaraman10-Feb-2022The PSL has prided itself on being a bowler’s league – in as much as any T20 league can delude itself into thinking it is a bowler’s league. But it has often looked sniffily at other leagues where fours and sixes have been the currency. Playing out its early years in the UAE, meant it had little choice: slower pitches and bigger boundaries do not a boundary-hitting bonanza make.So the left-arm fast bowler that is the league’s logo has always felt spiritually apt; sure, in the mind at a PSL game, at the crease is poised Babar Azam. But really the league is about the guy running in at him, whether that is Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Naseem Shah or even an old-stager like Wahab Riaz (11 of the PSL’s top 15 wicket-takers are pacers).Until, that is, this season (or more accurately, this half-season).The Karachi leg of PSL 7 has seen a batting bounty unlike any in its six previous seasons: more boundaries, more sixes, higher-scoring, faster-scoring. Only halfway through the season and already there are more 200+ scores (7) than the entire last two seasons combined (6). This half-season contributes nearly a third of all the 200+ scores ever in the league; there have been two more 200+ totals this season than the first three seasons combined.Unsurprisingly, this season has been zipping along with the highest batting strike rate in PSL history – a good five runs per 100 balls more than the second-best season.