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Senior editor, ESPNcricinfo- Osman spent the first half of his life pretending he discovered reverse swing with a tennis ball half-covered with electrical tape. The second half of his life was spent trying, and failing, to find spiritual fulfillment in the world of Pakistani advertising and marketing. The third half of his life will be devoted to convincing people that he did discover reverse swing. And occasionally writing about cricket. And learning mathematics.
The PSL has prided itself on being a bowler's league - in as much as any T20 league can delude itself into thinking it is a bowler's league. But it has often looked sniffily at other leagues where fours and sixes have been the currency. Playing out its early years in the UAE, meant it had little choice: slower pitches and bigger boundaries do not a boundary-hitting bonanza make.
So the left-arm fast bowler that is the league's logo has always felt spiritually apt; sure, in the mind at a PSL game, at the crease is poised Babar Azam. But really the league is about the guy running in at him, whether that is Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Naseem Shah or even an old-stager like Wahab Riaz (11 of the PSL's top 15 wicket-takers are pacers).
Until, that is, this season (or more accurately, this half-season).
The Karachi leg of PSL 7 has seen a batting bounty unlike any in its six previous seasons: more boundaries, more sixes, higher-scoring, faster-scoring. Only halfway through the season and already there are more 200+ scores (7) than the entire last two seasons combined (6). This half-season contributes nearly a third of all the 200+ scores ever in the league; there have been two more 200+ totals this season than the first three seasons combined.
Unsurprisingly, this season has been zipping along with the highest batting strike rate in PSL history - a good five runs per 100 balls more than the second-best season.
By any metric of boundary-hitting, this season stands out.
Islamabad has led the way in boundary-hitting which makes sense given their batting order, like some lost boat, is anchorless. From Paul Stirling and Alex Hales, through Azam Khan and Faheem Ashraf, down to Hasan Ali at ten, this is a six-hitting side. Shadab Khan hit 15 sixes through what was his most successful batting season in PSL 5 but he's already hit 15 this season.
How has this happened? A combination of reasons, prime among which is that the surfaces at National Stadium have enabled it. That, at least, is what some players and analysts seem to think. The ball has come on to bat much better because most - not all - the surfaces have been truer. A useful (but not definitive) indicator is how well bouncers have been dealt with: on slower surfaces last season, batters were striking at 139.17 but this season, where the pace and bounce has been truer, they've hit at 153.34.
Whether it's made a difference the season has been played in January-February rather than February-March is unclear. Anecdotally there has also been talk of smaller boundaries on one side, which have quelled the sluggishness of one of the side pitches on which games have been played.
But teams like Islamabad, Quetta and Multan are consciously built so that their batting reaps the rewards of these conditions. Islamabad's strategy is clear, but Multan have also allied the hyper-anchors of Mohammad Rizwan and Shan Masood with the power-hitting of Tim David, Khushdil Shah and Sohaib Maqsood (though he hasn't hit the heights of last season yet).
There is also a modern English white-ball batting flavour lolling around the palette. There are a few young English batters around, not exactly bursting into the imagination, but of solid T20 pedigree. Will Smeed, Harry Brook, Dan Lawrence may not be power-hitters like young West Indian batters, but they're inventive, 360-degree players, born to not hold back. The daddy, Jason Roy, has just landed in the building too.
Drilling down a little more, the biggest difference from previous seasons is in the powerplay. The strike rate in that phase so far this season has been 144.97. That's not just the highest ever in the PSL, but the highest of all time from the first six overs (including pre-powerplay restrictions) of any from the IPL, CPL and BBL.
If the lengths bowled and wickets taken is any indication, the new ball has done less than last season. Assuming that going full more often is an indication there is some swing, this season only three wickets have fallen in the powerplay off 189 full-pitched deliveries; last season it was 11 off 374 balls. Things might change in Lahore but the difference in strike rates - 63 this season, 34 last - for that length feels revealing.
As does the list of this season's most successful batters: seven openers in the top eight. There's only one batter in that list who has a strike rate of less than 138 and Babar's struggles this season are reflective of his side's.
The flipside to this is that pace bowling, a PSL watermark, has suffered. Unless there is a drastic turnaround in Lahore, this is shaping up to be the worst PSL season for fast bowlers - nearly a run more per over, nearly 12 runs more per wicket.
In the powerplay, compared to last season, fast bowlers have half as many wickets at approximately double the strike rates and averages. No swing, smaller boundaries, truer surfaces have created a perfect storm to neuter fast bowling up front.
Shaheen Afridi's first over to Jason Roy in the last game before the break is a good microcosm. Afridi went full because if there's any swing at all, he's going to get it. There wasn't and Roy cashed in, with 15 runs.
In the next over Afridi pulled back, to just back of a length - a standard response and a length which does better in that phase. Roy drove one on the up and cut the other, both for boundaries. Last season, the strike rate against these lengths in the powerplay was 99.7 and a boundary hit every 7.2 balls. This season it has been 126.5 and a boundary hit less than every five balls. Afridi-Roy was a contest of peak quality of course (one which Roy, by the way, is winning hands down), but it feels as if even at lower levels of quality, a similar story has played itself out.
That story could yet change, given that the conditions in Lahore will be significantly different. More dew is expected which will affect sides defending targets and the temperatures will also be cooler. The surfaces will likely be different too.