Even in 2025, not many would have dared to turn down an obvious single like Lucknow Super Giants No. 3 Nicholas Pooran did to smear the ball out of the park off a positive ‘match-up’. Thursday’s consolatory win over the Gujarat Titans wouldn’t have meant as much for the team’s data analysts as Pooran’s downright T20 outlook did.
More context: Batting first on an Ahmedabad flatbed, Mitch Marsh had progressively built up to 89 within the 15th over when a well-set Pooran refused a run after drilling out a block-hole delivery from left-armer Sai Kishore to long-off. Lining up for the favoured angle of the tweaker, southpaw Pooran smoked the next delivery for six, evoking the first significant steps of a true-blue batting leap under the IPL spotlight.
A revolution is on. Debates over T20’s ‘non-boundary’ runs are gathering pace. Is the single (strike-rotation) worth it when all those invested are busy breaking their heads in coupling the brains and brawn to score faster every year?
| Top-order (1-3) batting overall for IPL season | |||
| Powerplay | 2022 | 2024 | 2025 |
| Runs | 6394 | 7625 | 6728 |
| Wickets | 218 | 227 | 183 |
| Average | 29.33 | 35.4 | 36.76 |
| Balls Faced | 5256 | 5100 | 4446 |
| Strike Rate | 121.65 | 149.5 | 151.3 |
| Sixes | 220 | 330 | 315 |
| Fours | 801 | 949 | 792 |
| % runs in bdry | 70.75 | 75.75 | 75.17 |
The top-order (1-3) batters have most resisted change over the years until the SRH revolution of 2024 meant mentalities needed urgent rewiring to go bang from ball one instinctively. Mavericks like Pooran have soared further, validating the sheer value of consistent sixes at the expense of dots in the format.
Intriguingly, the league and its wide range of openers from contrasting schools of thought are also moving forward, with an improvement in the scoring rates and the smartness factor associated with the adventures of boundary-hitting.
Countering premonitions, the six-hitting rate (13.14) in IPL 2025 hasn’t quite caught up with the 2024 season just yet (12.99 bp6), but potent and stabler top-order machinery has meant that change is underway.
64 matches in and with a handful of games left, the top-order bats of most teams have grown quicker while adding runs at a higher average than last year.
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Since the return of the 10-team format, the averages (34.20) and the strike rate (157.15) of the top-order are at their highest this season, surpassing 2024’s figures from 72 games (31.01 and 153.98). The spurt is considerable, especially when the overall scoring rates currently stand at 9.50 this year, marginally short of the 2024 edition, the fastest batting season in IPL history at 9.56 runs per over.
| IPL Top-order batting in return of 10-team format | ||||||||
| Year | Players | Mat | Runs | Ave | SR | 4s | 6s | Bdry % |
| IPL 2023 | 69 | 74 | 13310 | 32.22 | 142.61 | 1373 | 526 | 64.97 |
| IPL 2024 | 63 | 72 | 12373 | 31.01 | 153.98 | 1241 | 600 | 69.21 |
| IPL 2022 | 66 | 74 | 11818 | 28.47 | 132.66 | 1190 | 460 | 63.63 |
| IPL 2025 | 55 | 63 | 11628 | 34.2 | 157.15 | 1152 | 583 | 69.71 |
Power-hitting efficiency
That a frugal Chennai Super Kings, who resisted the power-hitting influence to a point where they drastically lost the plot before being forced to join the bandwagon, exemplifies the might of the new batting currency. Mid-season replacement signings Ayush Mhatre and Dewald Brevis, their muscle-infused game, somewhat salvaged CSK’s woeful Powerplay and sixes count. In only six games, 17-year-old Mhatre topped the PP batting charts with 143 runs at 190-plus SR. Young Saffer Brevis is the second-highest six-hitter (12) for the five-time champions from five outings, only behind Shivam Dube’s 19.
SRH’s precipitous tumble from 2024, with failures riddling a ballistic top-order, may have also suggested that there might just be a certain tempo to sustain this six-hitting thing that begins from ball 1/240.
| Best Team Powerplays in a season | |||||
| Team | Runs | SR | AVE | 6s | 4s |
| SRH (2024) | 1073 | 175.47 | 37 | 59 | 113 |
| KKR (2024) | 923 | 168.46 | 43.95 | 45 | 107 |
| RR (2025) | 914 | 174.05 | 50.77 | 57 | 98 |
611 Powerplay runs at 30.55 avg/141.64 SR do not reflect on the ‘Travishek’ combine that suplexed oppositions last summer, with SRH setting a league record for most Powerplay runs in a season with the best SR and sixes shares — 1073 runs at 37.00/175.47 with 59 maximums.
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Amidst a dismal campaign, it is a facet the Rajasthan Royals have perfected with their homegrown talent at their training base. Power-hitting spikes led by the resurgent Yashasvi Jaiswal and the precocious Vaibhav Suryavanshi had RR nearly match up to the devastation SRH inflicted on the new-ball bowlers last year.
Despite the 10 defeats, Rajasthan smoked 146 sixes; 57 in the Powerplay, where they lead the rest by a fair distance, recording 914 runs at 174.05 SR, only a fraction behind SRH ‘24. Acing the power game, over 80 per cent of RR’s Powerplay runs emanated from boundaries in the first-six – the best among the three sides to have aggregated 900 PP runs in an edition (KKR in 2024 being the other).
Faster batting Powerplays at fewer wickets naturally improve the odds of reaching above-par totals. Led by the stunning cohesion of the Shubman Gill-Sai Sudharsan duo, the Gujarat Titans order has offered another take to the blitz.
| Scoring rates of top-order pairs in IPL 2025 (min. 200 runs) | ||||
| Rank | Pair | Runs (Inn) | Average | Run Rate |
| 1 | Mitchell Marsh-Nicholas Pooran | 466 (7) | 66.57 | 13.12 |
| 11 | Sai Sudharsan-Shubman Gill | 885 (13) | 73.75 | 9.6 |
| 21 | Yashasvi Jaiswal-Sanju Samson | 299 (8) | 42.71 | 8.44 |
The Indian opening pair of GT is only 55 runs short of breaking the record partnership aggregate in a season, tallying their runs with a stupendous 70-plus average. But with the impending loss of No.3 Jos Buttler in the Playoffs, the Titans will be wary of the scoring and six-hitting rates up top.
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Of the 21 top-order pairs that garnered more than 200 runs together, Gill-Sudarshan’s 9.60 run-rate ranks mid-way, almost minuscule behind leaders Marsh-Pooran’s 13.12 rpo for 466 runs at 66.57.
The diverse smarts of the 10 teams and top orders nevertheless unify to surrender to T20 batting’s evolving countenance, the growing need for solid and wacky starts with no compromise on sixes or wickets.