The IPL 2023 will get underway on March 31, with the tournament opener seeing the defending champions Gujarat Titans hosting Chennai Super Kings in Ahmedabad.
The IPL 2023 is the 16th edition of the tournament, its inception happening back in 2008.
Cricket has changed in some ways from when the IPL started. One of the changes is in the stumps. Instead of the normal wooden sticks, now the stumps are engraved with LED lights, and on top of it are mounted the zing bails.
The zing bails and the stumps light up the moment any part of any bail is dislodged, giving more of a use to the fielding side than before when normal stumps and bails were used and sometimes if would have been difficult for the third umpire to judge whether the bail is off the stumps or not. But now, with zing bails, the third umpire gets a clear idea of the moment the bail is dislodged by the keeper/fielder.
The drawback of the zing bails is that it’s a bit too heavier compared to normal bails. And hence, as we have seen on a number of occasions, in the past few years, the bail doesn’t fall off the stumps even in case of bowled dismissals – on some instances the ball just deflected off the stumps without the bail falling over – and consequently the batsman survives. This aspect of the zing bail – of being too heavy to fall off even in bowled dismissals – has been criticized by many.
How much does LED stumps used in IPL 2023 cost?
Because of the LED and sensitivity meters embedded in the stumps and zing bails, these are vastly more expensive than the normal set of stumps.
A set of LED stumps and Zing bails cost around $40,000, that is INR 30 lakh.
LED stumps were first used at the 2014 ICC World Twenty20, and have since become commonplace in major white-ball cricket and also in Test matches in some parts of the world.
When is the IPL 2023 final?
The Indian Premier League 2023 final is scheduled for May 28, to be played in Ahmedabad.
The major exciting news for the fans is that the IPL returns to its traditional home-and-away format in India for the first time since 2019.
