Space, positioning, muscle memory, and a mean bat swing are the key components of Nicholas Pooran’s T20 hitting style. He leads the charts in run aggregate this season and is hitting five sixes a game on average. Among the top 15 scorers, he is also one of just two batters with more sixes (31) than fours (25). Years of honing the riskiest skill in the game have led to the possibility that he will toss sixes, which can be either amusing or upsetting, depending on your point of view.
“I’ve talked to him [Pooran] about needing the right space,” Julian Wood, a renowned power-hitting coach, tells Cricbuzz. “If you have too much space, you lose control. Too little, and you feel restricted. But once you get that spacing right, the bat just flows through the ball. His bat swing is so pure. The timing of his snaps with the ball is perfect. And his spacing is great,” Wood explains.
Pooran left the team shortly after Wood started working as a batting adviser for the Punjab Kings in the 2022 season, but the two have frequently discussed batting and their mutual love of power hitting. Although Pooran is 5’6″, he may seem physically little for the six-hitting threat he has developed into, Wood believes that his rhythm and timing are what give him his strength and accuracy.
“I surprise myself sometimes,” Pooran said after his 34-ball 61 helped LSG beat GT at home on Friday. “For me, it’s about trying to get the ball as close to the middle of the bat as possible and trusting my bat swing.”
Pooran was just eight when the first-ever T20I was played, and 12 when BCCI rolled out the carpet for the inaugural season of IPL in 2008. His foray into the game, and subsequent rise, have been in lockstep with the evolution of the format itself. Though he has been part of the IPL ecosystem since 2019, the depths of his capabilities have truly been uncovered only this season.
By making another significant choice and designating him as the designated No. 3, LSG made their premium retention, which was INR 21 Crore, a wise business move. His arrival at one-drop has been unconditional in a team that starts with two right-handers (Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram). He has had three PowerPlay appearances this season: two immediately following it and one at the beginning of the second half of the innings, where he batted to the very end and hit his highest score of 87* off 36 against KKR. In addition to roaring matchup victories, giving him time in the crease has produced immediate benefits.
On Friday, he arrived at 65/1 in the seventh over, with LSG already on course in chase of GT’s 180/6. At the 10th-over mark, Shubman Gill decided to take a risk – of chucking a left-arm spinner in Pooran’s path. Only two other captains (Pat Cummins and Hardik Pandya) before him have dared to attempt that with humbling results as Pooran went 6, 6, 0, 6, 4, 1 against Abhishek Sharma (2) and Mitchell Santner (4).
However, Sai Kishore arrived more confident and with stronger credentials than the former. Heinrich Klaasen, a player similar to Pooran, was among the big-hitters he had already tested his variants on this season. However, all of this was negated when Pooran welcomed the spinner by moving his front leg out of the way and smashing a short delivery for a six over mid-wicket. Despite changing sides, lengths, and lines, Sai Kishore ultimately let up two more sixes in a 24-run over.
In the IPL, the rule “Never bowl a left-arm spinner to Pooran” needs to be ingrained. With the hope that hitting the larger square boundary (70m on the leg side, 63 on the off) would cause Pooran to lose his composure, Gill embarked on that perilous journey. But this wasn’t the first time Pooran had ridiculed mismatched boundary lengths this season. Pooran jumped over this dimensions gambit and flayed the spinners once more after Ajinkya Rahane set up a similar trap at the Eden Gardens four days earlier, this time with the longer square barrier at 70m.
It has been quite impossible to find a suitable middle-overs remedy for Pooran this season. Even though Axar Patel was at the other extreme, he still received a beating. He pushed his luck by attempting to slip in an over from Tristan Stubbs, a part-time off-spinner who effectively spun the ball away from Pooran, but he correctly avoided bowling himself when Pooran was in the middle as a left-arm spinner. The spin direction didn’t matter because Pooran removed 28 from it. Pooran has hit up to 22 of his 31 sixes this season against spinners.
Quicks haven’t had their way with him because of that. Even though the stats aren’t as startling, the ones with the ball in hand still have a significant advantage. Pooran has skillfully blended his perfect spin game with his ability to hit pace. As Mohammed Siraj discovered in the 13th over when his slower bouncer was landed in the top tier over deep square leg, he has also been able to see through changes of pace most of the time, maintaining his shape to punish those deliveries as well.
Prior experience as a finisher has also improved his ability to withstand death’s trickery. “In T20 cricket, very few players have batted from number one to number seven at some point in their careers. He first trained to be a finisher since he was used as one. He would practice his final bowling strokes, such as slow balls and wide yorkers. Additionally, Wood claims that he has excellent expertise in a variety of positions because he has batted everywhere.
Pooran has struck 218 sixes in all T20s since the beginning of 2024, which is 94 more than the next-best player on the list (Klaasen). He had a spectacular IPL 2024 season during this time, hitting 35 sixes his route to 499 runs at a strike rate of 178.21 in 14 games. With at least eight games remaining in the season, he is already within 150 runs of that number as of Friday night. He might surpass last season’s total as early as Monday night against CSK if his six-hitting pace holds.
Following lackluster periods at Sunrisers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings, when he frequently felt like an unpackaged luxury, LSG has figured out how to put up with the most destructive version of Pooran yet, both on the field and at the auction table.
