Marcus Stoinis has backed the Indian Premier League (IPL)’s decision to allow the team bowling second in an evening match to change the ball once at any point after the 10th over.
The Australian all-rounder, who will represent Punjab Kings in this edition of the tournament, described it as a “great decision.”
“The changing of the ball halfway through the second innings is a great decision because the dew does play a big part in that stage of the game. So, it is something that hopefully does make it more of an even contest and the teams become less reliant on the toss,” Stoinis told Sportstar.
Previously, umpires had the discretion to change the ball if they deemed it too wet due to dew. However, under the new rule, the bowling team can now request a ball change at any time between overs 11 and 20 of the second innings, and the umpires must grant the request.
With the format heavily skewed in favour of batters, bowlers have had little margin for error, leading to frequent 250-plus totals. However, Stoinis relishes the challenge.
“It’s exciting,” he said. “The batting is going from strength to strength, but also the wickets have been very good. It makes bowling tough, but it also sets apart the bowlers. It sets apart the guys like the Bumrahs (Jasprit Bumrah) of this world, not that there’s many of them, but it shows how good they are because it shows that they’re executing their skill more frequently than anyone else in the world. But then also, I think the scores in the last edition of the IPL were very high,” said the 35-year-old Stoinis, who retired from ODIs last month.
With India set to host the T20 World Cup next year, he anticipates a high-scoring tournament.
“There’s a T20 World Cup coming up in not too long, and that’s going to be in India. So that’s super exciting. That’s going to be a very high-scoring affair, and I personally think that makes for great viewing for the people at home,” Stoinis said, hinting that he remains available for Australia in the shortest format.
While he supports the new ball-change rule, Stoinis — a member of Australia’s 2023 ODI World Cup-winning squad — believes that the IPL’s decision to reintroduce saliva use on the ball will have little impact in white-ball cricket.
“It may pave the way for the rule to come back (in international cricket), but I don’t think it will make a massive difference in white-ball cricket,” he said.