IPL 2023: Sixes account for 27 percent of all runs scored so far in this edition of the IPL

Six games in, Faf Du Plessis has the most runs in this season of the IPL (343) and the most sixes (23).

Consider Faf Du Plessis. The South African cricketing demi-god has already hit 23 sixes, leading the tally across teams, followed by Glen Maxwell with 19, and a clutch of players—Venkatesh Iyer, Kyle Mayers, Shimron Hetmyer, and Nicholas Pooran—with 15 hits each. Du Plessis has also hit the longest six, at 115 metres, and has the most runs in the season so far with 343.

And that’s just six games down, at the time of publishing on April 22, 2023. Compare that to last season, when Jos Buttler, the highest run-getter, amassed 863 runs from 17 games with 45 sixes, and KL Rahul, the second highest run-getter (616) hit 30 sixes in 15 games. If Du Plessis manages to continue in the same vein, he can end up with over 60 sixes for the season.

Also read: IPL 2023: Faf Du Plessis, Mohammed Siraj help Bangalore take down Punjab on April 20

IPL 2023 has already seen more runs scored off sixes—nearly 27 percent of all runs scored—than any previous season. The effect can be seen clearly in the team totals as well—both the first innings and the second innings scores, on an average, are higher than they have ever been in the IPL. Or you can see the effect in the way that teams are ruthlessly chasing down improbable targets, Kolkata Knight Rider’s Rinku Singh’s five sixes off five balls in the last over in a recent match against Gujarat Titans being Exhibit A.

This is a natural progression. T20s have overshadowed all other formats, especially ODIs, and they are the bread and butter for cricketers across the world. It’s a format that’s purpose-built for no-holds-barred hitting. It’s all the incentive that teams and batters need to continuously improve on their big hitting abilities. England hit on the right formula for T20s by prioritizing all-out attacking in 2019, and have been on a great run since, including the 2022 T20 World Cup win. They even transplanted the idea into Tests via the famed “Bazball” philosophy to great effect.

Cricketers from the Caribbean—who were the first to implement the idea of making a living by becoming itinerant T20 franchise players, partly as a reaction to the protracted problems and chaos of the West Indies cricket board—made their name in the freelance world on the strength of their big hitting. Indeed, no one has hit more career sixes in the IPL than the OG big-hitter from Jamaica, Chris Gayle (Punjab Kings), with 357 career sixes in the league—that's 106 more than the next best, Ab de Villiers (, even though Gayle has played 42 matches less.

This season, the Caribbean penchant for six-hitting is being represented by Nicholas Pooran at Lucknow Super Giants. He has only scored 170 runs so far, but he has done it at a crazy strike rate of 200, thanks to his 15 sixes (more than his count of boundaries, which stands at 11). The Barbadian Kyle Mayers is making a name for himself alongside his Trinidadian friend Pooran at Lucknow, and is among the top 10 run-getters so far this season, not to mention the 15 sixes he has smashed.

Shimron Hetmyer is coming into his own as a finisher for the Rajasthan Royals, maintaining a strike rate of nearly 180, with 15 sixes against only 7 boundaries so far, and winning games for his team. As he did in a recent match against the Gujarat Titans, with a major offensive when his team was looking down and out at 57 for 4 after 10 overs, chasing 178. Hetmeyer berserked his way to a 26-ball 56 and with five sixes, including a maximum to finish the game.

To go back to where we began, Du Plessis was scooped by the Royal Challengers Bangalore at last year’s auction after a bidding war with the South African’s previous employers, Chennai Super Kings, because he was seen as the perfect replacement after Virat Kohli gave up his captaincy for the team. Who better than the man who has captained South Africa, with great success, in all formats of the game, and is one of the all-time great batters in the history of cricket? Kohli’s immense aura as captain and player required that a leader of equal influence take over from him, especially since he was going to continue to be a part of the team. RCB needed to change—despite boasting of some of the biggest hitters in cricket, like Gayle and de Villiers, the Bangalore outfit had never won the league. Captained by Kohli since 2014, they had one outstanding season in 2016 where they made the final, but had struggled since then, before finding form in 2020. But even then, it had not been enough. Kohli’s captaincy, and his classical approach, where he worked on building chases, finding gaps, taking quick singles—all the stuff that made him the world’s greatest ODI chaser—came in for heavy criticism as unsuited to T20s. It made sense, then, that Du Plessis, whose immense experience equals his immense hitting capabilities, would be the one to shape RCB’s playing style instead of Kohli. Du Plessis has hit his way around the world in T20 franchises—from Joburg to Saint Lucia, from Kent to Peshawar, via Comilla, Chennai, Perth, Paarl and many others—honing a simple philosophy that requires immense practice and skill: hit as many sixes as you can.

He will try and ensure that it’s no different in Bangalore.