![\"PBKS](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-129915846,imgsize-22480,width-400,resizemode-4\/pbks-vs-gt.jpg\" "\\"Ricky")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nNEW CHANDIGARH: There is a particular sound that has come to define the IPL<\/a> evening these days \u2014 not the applause of a boundary, but the thud of a ball disappearing several rows back, followed by a collective murmur that asks: How far did that go?In this version of T20 cricket, now 200 is not even a par total. For the bowlers, increasingly in the IPL, it feels like survival rather than contest. <\/p>\n Watch<\/span><\/p>\n Greenstone Lobo predicts IPL 2026 winner<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. <\/span>SUBSCRIBE NOW!<\/a>Ricky Ponting<\/a> and Matthew Hayden<\/a>, two men who spent much of their careers making bowlers\u2019 lives miserable, now sit in IPL dugouts as coaches and watch their bowlers suffer.The IPL, always a batter\u2019s playground, has leaned into excess nowadays. The Impact Player rule, Punjab Kings\u2019 Ponting suggested, hasn\u2019t just deepened batting line-ups; it has liberated them. \u201cIt\u2019s a really hard thing for the bowlers now,\u201d Ponting said. \u201cThe modern T20 batter\u2026 they\u2019re big, strong athletes. The bowler has to miss by a couple of inches on line or on length, and they pay the penalty. The ball is going over the fence and it\u2019s going a long way over.\u201dALSO READ:<\/span> India\u2019s overlooked stars Gill, Iyer in focus as PBKS host GT<\/a> \u201cThe margin for error has shrunk to something almost invisible,\u201d said Gujarat Titans\u2019 Hayden, \u201cOnce upon a time in the IPL, the approach was incremental… from taking a single to hitting a six. Now, it is on the other spectrum. Six, four\u2026 then maybe a single. It is a reversal not just of order, but of philosophy.\u201dWhen intent is this absolute, how do you disrupt it? The answers, both coaches agree, are not revolutionary, but old-fashioned and executed with precision.Hayden listed them out like a checklist: wide yorkers, yorkers at the stumps, slower offcutters into the pitch. \u201cVariations are not new, accuracy is everything. You don\u2019t have to be a rocket scientist,\u201d Hayden said, \u201cBut you do have to be near-perfect.\u201dPonting leaned into the tactical. \u201cChange of angles, better use of the bouncer. The search for the unfamiliar \u2014 a mystery spinner, perhaps, someone who can buy a few deliveries of doubt in a format that rarely allows it,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n