THE YEAR INDIANS BETTERED THE BEST FROM THE REST

Indian talent shone brighter than ever at the 17th edition of the IPL. But with massive scores, the season also showed a further tilt of balance towards batters

- 

ON the last day of the league stage of IPL 2024, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma of Sunrisers Hyderabad-the most feared opening combination walked out to the middle needing to chase 214 to get a chance at a top-two spot.

In the very first ball of the chase, disaster struck. Travis was cleaned up by young Indian Arshdeep Singh.

In seasons past, the Sunrisers might have panicked after losing their talismanic Australian opener. Instead, Rahul Tripathi walked in and nervelessly smashed 23 off the next 10 balls. And then Abhishek Sharma got into the act, hitting 66 in just 28 balls— including five more sixes-and powered his team to a commanding four-wicket victory and into the playoffs. In all his past 47 IPL appearances since 2018, Sharma had hit a total of 32 sixes, this year he hit 40.

It's been that kind of year. This, the 17th season of the IPL, has given us plenty to celebrate and a fair amount to think about.

First, the good news. If this league has often been dominated by international talent and a few Indian superstars, the last few years have seen a huge surge in the effectiveness and performances of domestic Indian talent. And 2024 has seen that taken to a totally different level.

Abhishek Sharma and Nitish Reddy starring for the Sunrisers, Shashank Singh and Ashutosh Rana for Delhi, Swapnil Singh making some vital contributions with the ball and the bat for RCB, and Harshit Rana and Vaibhav Arora with the ball for KKR. The list can go on and on. And these were not one-offs instead, they gave consistent performances that took their teams to victory over a series of matches.