At the start of this IPL season, South African fast bowler Kagiso Rabada echoed a key concern voiced by many about the lack of balance between bat and ball in T20 cricket. With teams pushing to cross the 300-run mark, he said that if the trend continued, the game should be called “batting” not “cricket”!

The BCCI is now moving to strike a balance. Going ahead, every IPL batsman must pass the bat through a gauge before taking guard. While the fourth umpire will check the bats of openers before they enter the field, every subsequent batsman must clear the "bat gauge" wielded by on-field umpires.

The move comes after several cases of batsmen using “oversized” bats came to light. In the IPL, such batsmen have been let off with warnings but on the English county circuit, Nottinghamshire was docked points last year in one such case.

Speaking to The Indian Express, IPL chairman Arun Dhumal said the decision was taken to ensure fairness on the field. “Nobody should feel that somebody’s got an undue advantage,” he said. 

“The BCCI and IPL have always taken all initiatives in this direction so that fairness of the game is maintained. We have used technology to the maximum to make sure that all decisions can be reviewed so that the games don’t get unfairly affected. The idea behind this initiative is to ensure that the spirit of the game is maintained,” Dhumal said.

The triangle-shaped plastic gauge has the dimensions of a legal bat printed on it: depth 2.68 inches, width 4.33 inches, edges 1.61 inches. The curve, or the bulge of the bat, seen on the lower non-hitting side of the bat, needs to be within 0.20 inches.

Before this season, bats were not tested on match days; officials would conduct tests on the eve of the game. But this system had an obvious loophole: some batsmen would turn up for the game with different bats.