Sunrisers Hyderabad built their squad around one specific proposition: the most destructive batting lineup in the competition should be placed on surfaces that allow them to express that destruction fully. Travis Head is attacking in the power play. Heinrich Klaasen is accelerating in the middle overs. A lineup that averaged above ten runs per over […]
Sunrisers Hyderabad built their squad around one specific proposition: the most destructive batting lineup in the competition should be placed on surfaces that allow them to express that destruction fully. Travis Head is attacking in the power play. Heinrich Klaasen is accelerating in the middle overs. A lineup that averaged above ten runs per over […]
Sanju Samson getting started and not converting them is a familiar story. The frustrating dismissal in the transition phase. The innings that promised something exceptional and delivered something functional. At Rajasthan Royals, where his role was clear, and the batting order was built around his specific strengths, those dismissals existed but felt like individual failures […]
111 runs conceded in 40 death over balls. Economy rate of 16.65. Worst among all teams in the competition. These aren’t numbers that reflect a couple of expensive overs against exceptional batting; they reflect a pattern across multiple matches that confirms CSK’s death bowling isn’t a form problem. It’s a structural one. The RCB match […]
Three consecutive losses to start the season. Last in the table. The same franchise that won five IPL titles under Dhoni now sits at the bottom with a death over economy of 16.65, a batting order that keeps reshuffling, and a leadership structure that looks reactive rather than composed. These three losses are the visible […]
75 off 42 balls against the Gujarat Titans. The scorecard shows an excellent innings, and most match reviews stop there. They shouldn’t. Dhruv Jurel’s contribution to Rajasthan Royals’ win included identifying which boundary to target against which bowler on Ahmedabad’s asymmetric surface, suggesting the tactical plan that used googlies specifically against left-handers to force risky […]
Eleven required. One over remaining. Elite finishers at the crease. The situation that separates death-over specialists from death-over experiments. Tushar Deshpande bowled six yorkers. Not six attempted yorkers with variations mixed in when the pressure climbed. Six yorkers. The four runs GT scored came from the margins of execution rather than from Deshpande changing his […]
Mohammed Shami came back from injury as a seam-and-swing bowler. That’s what everyone expected to see. The bounce, the outswing, the hard length that climbs above the hands. What IPL 2026 batters are actually facing is something different, a Shami who mixes pace in the powerplay before the batter has established their timing, bowls fuller […]
Ravi Bishnoi built his T20 reputation on one specific quality: quicker leg spin that rushed batters before they had loaded for the shot. The skiddy delivery arrived faster than the flight suggested. The trajectory removes the settling-in time that conventional leg spinners give batters on flat surfaces. That quality has been partially replaced by something […]
Varun Chakravarthy’s entire value to KKR is built on one specific quality: batters don’t know what’s coming. The carrom ball that looks like the leg break. The googly is from the same action as the off-spin. The release point variations make reading the hand genuinely difficult rather than occasionally uncertain. That specific quality requires freshness, […]
Axar Patel didn’t bowl Kuldeep Yadav when MI expected him. He didn’t use T. Natarajan in the power play when convention said he should. He didn’t lock any bowler into a fixed-over allocation regardless of how the match was moving. Delhi Capitals beat Mumbai Indians with a bowling plan that was built around one principle: […]
There was a time when the short ball to Shreyas Iyer was a bowling plan rather than a delivery option. Hit him hard in the body. Force the rushed pull. Set the field for the top edge. Repeat until dismissed. Multiple bowling attacks used that blueprint across multiple IPL seasons, and it worked consistently enough […]