KOLKATA This T20 World Cup hasn’t gone easy on the batters. Underdone pitches, rain interruptions and even strong winds, they have had to withstand it all. We have had middling scores as a result, and some abysmal run rates across powerplays and slog overs. Top names have faltered as well. Virat Kohli has 66 in six innings, Jonny Bairstow 110 in seven, David Miller has a strike rate of 100 and Heinrich Klaasen — he was making waves in IPL only last month — has barely fared better with 112.

Interestingly, teams haven’t let the inconsistent returns mess with their strategy. Kohli continues to open with Rohit Sharma, as does Reeza Hendricks for South Africa despite a string of poor scores, or for that matter Shivam Dube as middle-overs enforcer. Realising that only enough time in the middle can allow batters to devise a suitable counterattacking strategy, teams have not tinkered much with the batting orders and let them go by instinct.

That has effectively nullified most of the match-up data bowlers normally rely on.

Take Rohit’s 41-ball 92 against Australia for example, a captivating display of instinctive batting in a crunch match at a ground where the cross-wind gives a unique advantage to batters and bowlers. It’s also a tact-limiting factor, one that Rohit was bent on not affecting him. So, he decided to open up the field by getting into position earlier than usual for the shots he backs himself really well for.

“You’ve got to understand bowlers are smart as well. They’re going to not bowl into the breeze a lot,” Rohit had said after the Australia match. “So, you’ve got to open up all sides of the field, (and) not just be one-dimensional. And that is something that was going through my mind all through. I was thinking of hitting the ball everywhere possible. And when you keep an open mind and not think about just playing one shot, you can open (up) and access all sides of the field. And that is something that I was trying to do.”

Rohit has done this before as well, against Bangladesh and Pakistan in particular, but doesn’t have the returns to show. It didn’t deter him from following his instinct, a vein of thought carried forward throughout India’s batting by Rishabh Pant and Suryakumar Yadav who have broken data-driven field placements with innovative shots. Which is probably why India are the only side to have scored three 180-plus innings in the Super 8s, recording the most runs (526) with just three individual fifties, but a strike rate of 155.62 for the top six during the Super 8 phase.

Where franchise cricket has gained the most is also where the format has conceded ground a lot. Months on end T20 cricket on flat pitches for the sake of entertainment has made the game too unidimensional, nullifying the instinctive edge of batters who know the pitch or conditions won’t come in the way of their data-reliant hitting. Thankfully, though completely inadvertently, the pitches in this T20 World Cup have allowed bowlers to pose questions again, prompting batters to dig deeper and follow their instinct, explore areas or shots they normally shelve in franchise leagues, and learn more about their game in the process.

Rahmanullah Gurbaz should know, normally letting his aggression shape quick starts for Afghanistan for some time now. Against New Zealand, his strike rate was over 142. Against Uganda 168.88. But curbing the instinct is also an ability. So, when Australia started bowling in Kingstown, he understood the pitch was going to be two-paced and crawled his way to a 49-ball 60 that gave Afghanistan a defendable total. Next match against Bangladesh, he uncharacteristically hit just one boundary in 55 balls with an overall strike rate of 78. Turned out Gurbaz was right again.

All this nicely sets up the semi-finals from the game’s point of view. So predictable has been the scoring in IPL where bowlers had effectively been reduced to spectators that the format was screaming for a change of pace.

And this T20 World Cup has offered exactly that, giving the bowlers a worthy shot every match while asking the batters to learn, adapt and improvise. Most haven’t but some have, making this an unpredictable but thoroughly enjoyable World Cup.