A fifth over in IPL? Sunil Gavaskar urges BCCI to review ‘the restriction’ to maintain balance between bat and ball

Ever since the Impact Player rule came into existence in the Indian Premier League (IPL) the bowlers have had nightmares with the batters reaping all the rewards of the rule. Unlike the previous seasons, IPL 2026 has been a complete run-fest with as many as 12 successful run chases of 200-plus totals - the most in a single season, surpassing nine in IPL 2025.

In fact, Punjab Kings chased down Delhi Capitals 265/4 - the highest successful run-chase in the history of IPL. Amid such a beating right, left and centre, former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar came up with a suggestion for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to restore the balance between the bat and ball.

With most of the wickets being batting-friendly, the legendary Gavaskar proposed an idea which promises a fifth over for the most successful bowler after his four-over spell. “The restriction of only four overs to a bowler could be looked at again," Gavaskar said in his column for Mid-Day.

“If a batter can bat the entire 20 overs, why can’t a bowler who gets, say, three wickets in his four overs be allowed to bowl another over as a reward for getting those wickets? This way teams will also try getting wickets instead of trying only to save runs being scored,” added Gavaskar.

"After all, the best dot ball is the wicket-taking dot ball, isn’t it? Yes, you could conceivably have three bowlers getting three wickets and an extra over each,” said the 76-year-old. Going by the statistics,

This year’s IPL has produced 46 200-plus totals, the most in a single edition of the tournament. Out of these, SRH have scored the most (8). At least one team has crossed 200 a stunning 26 times, while 20 matches have seen both teams breach the 200-run mark. Clearly, sixes and fours are the flavour of the season, but Gavaskar feels it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start trialling the one-over bonus at the grassroots level, test it, and then introduce it in next year’s IPL.

“That would even up the playing field a fair bit in a format where just about everything is stacked against the bowlers. Look at the small boundaries, the strict interpretation of the wide for a bouncer going marginally over the batter’s head and such like. So, giving the bowlers and the fielding captain an incentive to take wickets and not just be defensive from the first ball, would be something worth trying out.”