Akeal Hosein walked off the Wankhede field with figures most spinners only dream of in T20 cricket. Four wickets for 17 runs. He didn’t just take wickets against the Mumbai Indians. He dismantled their batting structure from the first over through to the middle overs, controlling the powerplay with the new ball, deceiving both right-handed […]
Akeal Hosein walked off the Wankhede field with figures most spinners only dream of in T20 cricket. Four wickets for 17 runs. He didn’t just take wickets against the Mumbai Indians. He dismantled their batting structure from the first over through to the middle overs, controlling the powerplay with the new ball, deceiving both right-handed […]
Five defeats. Five different opponents, five different venues, and five different phases of the Mumbai Indians’ history. The same story every time. The power play unravels. The middle order fails to stabilise. The lower order scrambles for runs that are already too far away. MI have won five IPL titles and produced some of the […]
The argument isn’t complicated. Nicholas Pooran is one of the most destructive T20 batters in the world. He destroys spin. He accelerates against pace. He changes match situations within three or four overs of taking guard. LSG have all of that available and keep sending him out when the game is already partially decided, the […]
Faf du Plessis didn’t mince his words. Jadeja can bat. Nobody questions that. The problem isn’t the ability; it’s when he decides to use it. Against Lucknow Super Giants, Jadeja walked in under pressure and came out with 43 off 29 balls. That looks fine on a scorecard. Watch the breakdown over and over, and […]
Gujarat Titans arrive at Chinnaswamy with a bowling attack capable of competing anywhere in this tournament. Their batting order is a different matter entirely. Glenn Phillips is being asked to both stabilise and finish, which means he’s doing neither job properly. Washington Sundar hasn’t consistently handled pressure phases against spin. And the lower order beyond […]
Five players ruled out. Three franchises are reshuffling combinations mid-tournament. The IPL injury wave of 2026 isn’t just a squad management story; it’s actively changing how matches are being played and won. Chennai Super Kings have lost both a key batter and their most flexible powerplay bowler. Sunrisers Hyderabad have burned through replacement signings before […]
Most powerplay bowling plans ask bowlers to contain and hope for mistakes. Jofra Archer and Nandre Burger don’t contain. They attack from ball one with the specific intention of making the first six overs feel like the most difficult batting period of the entire innings. Archer pushes consistently into the high 140s km/h. Burger generates […]
Bhuvneshwar Kumar hasn’t bowled consistently above 135 km/h for years. He doesn’t need to. What he does instead is something considerably harder to prepare for: he makes batters hesitate, then punishes the hesitation. His slower balls look identical to his faster ones until the ball is halfway down the pitch. His yorkers arrive at lengths […]
Aiden Markram is one of the most technically complete batters available in franchise cricket right now. His ability to combine solid defence with controlled aggression in the power play is a skill most T20 batting lineups would build around without hesitation. So the decision to bat him at No.5, where spinners dominate, and the scoring […]
The batting coaching manuals built over decades start at the same place. Sideways stance, soft hands, leave the wide ones, earn the right to attack. That progression from defense to offense has produced some of cricket’s greatest players. It has also produced something that the T20 era is now questioning directly. A teenager raised entirely […]
The knock on Shubman Gill in T20 cricket was always the same. Beautiful to watch, technically correct, but too slow when the game demands urgency. That criticism had followed him through multiple seasons and kept his India T20 selection chances uncertain, regardless of how many runs he scored. This season looks different. The intent is […]