The game of cricket consists of a lot of components coming together. Batting, bowling, wicket keeping and fielding cumulatively make this game. But the primary two departments of the game are batting and bowling. And for a significant amount of time since the inception of the game, both the departments were properly taken care of. The wickets were neutral, the rules didn't favour any of the sides. The matches happening would yield result with both having their fair share of success towards the team. But now it seems like the times have changed. And it looks like cricket is limited to batters.

The way the batters are playing is definitely a treat to watch. Meanwhile on the other hand it is extremely sad to witness the bowlers ending up as mere bowling machines rather than being an integral part of the game. With the T20 format already favouring the batters, there was still some hope for the bowlers in the initial years of introduction of this format. But now, there seems to be none. The shorter boundaries and flat wickets offering no help to the bowlers, massively aid the batters, and tremendously demean the morale of the bowlers. With the recent ongoings it certainly looks like the game of cricket could conveniently be termed as batter's game.

The biggest testament to this if the ongoing edition of IPL. A total of 287, 277 being reached in ODI would still be considered a good total, let alone in the T20s. Similarly the barrier of 250 runs has been breached a total of 8 times till now, with just half of the league commenced. In contrast to the previous editions of the cash rich league, where the run barrier was crossed only once in 2013 and once in 2023, its now becoming a common sight. It seems like 250 is the new normal for the game. But more importantly it seems like the new normal is to thrash the bowlers left, right and center. And in this process the contest between bat and ball seems to have lost its original form.

It is now a contest between the two teams on who hits the more number of sixes, and the bowlers have only one job of remaining at the receiving end of brutal thrashing from the batters. Its sad to see the bowlers pour their hearts out to run in hard and just get backlash of everyone. The situation has led to a bowler like Dale Steyn left surprised to what he could've done in this era. And similar would've been the case of best bowlers like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Brett Lee and many others. And the dead rubbers nowadays, combined with lighting fast outfield and a ball which hardly offers anything, would've left most of these greats defenseless.

There is therefore no surprise to see the bowlers fetch maximum price in the auction nowadays. The amount of money they are receiving will certainly inspire a few to take up bowling as a career, but the way they are treated would again make the youngsters re-think their decision to be a bowler. And its affecting even to the most prominent names on world cricket. Ravichandran Ashwin is one of the best off spinning wizards of all time, who always comes up with newer variations to deceive the batters. And he has achieved a lot of success. But he said that he regrets to be a bowler, and should've been a batter as he anyways opened the innings for Tamilnadu in domestic circuit. Its really disheartening to see a champion bowler like him to say anything like this, but one can only wonder on how the situation has prompted him to say so.

And rightly so, as the batters get respected tremendously even when the conditions highly favour them. And the bowlers are almost robbed off their credit, if any time they achieve any success on one odd green top wicket. The hypocrisy is evident from the fact that once when the bowlers had an upper hand on the game, the batters were praised highly to play well against them, and today when the reverse happens the bowlers are not rewarded at all. When one praises Sachin Tendulkar or Sunil Gavaskar, it is because they faced fiercest bowlers with the conditions tailored for bowling. But today, we don't see Bumrah or Cummins get the same respect when they outplay best of the batters when conditions highly favour batting.

And a cumulative result of all these will eventually be the downfall of bowling. In the generation where bowling as a skill has improved with variations like back of the hand slower balls and a few others, it sad to see the bowlers not being applauded for it. And with all of it happening now frequently, one might see the end of road for new bowlers to come. And if something has to be blamed for it, then it is leagues like IPL. One criticized PSL when 244 was chased 4 months back, but now when 260 is chased in IPL everyone is applauding the batting team and being highly inconsiderate about bowlers. And seeing teams breach 250+ every now and then, and a high possibility of 300 on the cards, why would any youngster like to take up bowling as a career. Necessary steps should be quickly taken as early as possible, or else in reality the matches would be conducted with batters and bowling machines in future.