Vettori lauds IPL’s decision to have a second new ball

Sunrisers Hyderabad Head Coach Daniel Vettori during a training session ahead of the TATA Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 match against Rajasthan Royals, at the Rajv Gandhi Stadium in Hyderabad on March 22, 2025.
| Photo Credit: K.V.S. Giri

Sunrisers Hyderabad head coach Daniel Vettori on Saturday (March 22, 2025) backed the decision to use a second ball in the evening matches to mitigate the dew factor during IPL 2025, calling it a “pragmatic answer to a difficult problem.” The BCCI announced that one ball would be changed in the second innings of evening games at the bowling team’s request to counter dew.

“I think it’s a really pragmatic answer to a difficult problem, and it doesn’t affect every ground, we know that,” Vettori told reporters on the eve of SRH’s opening match against Rajasthan Royals.

“I don’t think we experienced dew here at all last year, but Chennai, Mumbai I think in particular, so it’s just a nice solution for everyone to come up with, and I think it will work really well,” he said.

With teams regularly breaching the 250-270 mark, expectations are high that the 300-run barrier could be crossed this IPL season.

Asked about the conversation with bowlers, Vettori quipped: “Just don’t be the team that goes for 300,” drawing laughter before elaborating that with flat pitches on offer, bowlers expect batters to take an aggressive stance.

“I think there’s an understanding of the style of play from a batting group now, so whatever ground you go to, you have an understanding that the batting team’s going to be aggressive,” the 46-year-old said.

“I think the only thing that mitigates that really is the pitch, and most of the time, the pitches in the IPL are very flat, very good for batting. So, when you come to these grounds, you know exactly what to expect, you know how a batsman’s going to come up against you,” he added.

Vettori said captain Pat Cummins had addressed the team, especially the bowlers, regarding the challenge of countering aggressive batting.

“…It’s a good challenge for a bowling group to try and work their way through that, and that’s how I think Pat addressed the bowling group the other day,” he said.

“The expectation is on the batter to do all the work to score the runs, and the bowlers are there just to feed in. So for us, we can have a little bit of fun around it, and if we get those days where we can make it all work, that’s going to be great and will go a long way to winning games. I think the onus is on the batting group to score these runs, and the bowling group has to find ways to mitigate that,” he added.