If anyone was researching the impact of Twenty20 on the game, checking the statistics of the 2007-2008 Ranji season would certainly help. As the domestic season kicked off within months of India winning the Twenty20 World Cup, big hits were the order of the day. A total of 155 sixes and 1850 boundaries were recorded before the Ranji final. That’s 251 more boundaries in comparison to last season.
Baroda’s Yusuf Pathan heads the list of batsmen with the highest strike rate of 110.12. With the exception of Hyderabad’s VVS Laxman, Karnataka’s Sudhindra Shinde and Bengal’s Laxmi Ratan Shukla, all batsmen with a strike rate of more than 60 are below 25 years of age. A total of 11 batsmen have managed 100 or more runs through fours and sixes. Tamil Nadu’s Murali Vijay heads the slam bang lists with 22 fours and seven sixes. Vijay’s seven hits over the fence, in fact, are the highest number of sixes hit in an innings this season’s Ranji matches.
And this urgency at the domestic level saw a few old myths shatter. Batsmen known for sedate and solid batting styles were — as Delhi opener Aakash Chopra puts it — letting their hair down. A few rare sightings this season were: Mumbai skipper Amol Muzumdar hitting a six, the usually restrained Chopra reaching 50 before his more aggressive opening partner Gautam Gambhir and Mohammad Kaif repeatedly hitting the ball out of the ground. Kaif’s eight big hits makes him the third on the highest 6s chart.
And the charge of the boys from the small towns of India continued this season, with bowling seeming to be their forte. Five of the top ten wicket-takers this season hail from places like Una, Davanagere, Rajkot, Meerut and Ghaziabad. After years of batting-dominated seasons, in 2007-2008 the bowlers repeatedly hit the headlines. With 27 outright victories, it seems that the days of marathon innings which led to lame first-inning leads are finally over.

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