In an IPL season defined by batting mayhem, two teams scripted remarkable turnarounds on the back of their bowling attacks. Sunrisers Hyderabad had won six of their previous seven matches heading into Tuesday. Gujarat Titans arrived on a four-match winning streak. When the two sides clashed at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad with the top spot and a near-certain playoff berth at stake, the team with the stronger bowling resurgence came out emphatically on top.
Sunrisers were handed a proper thrashing. Sai Sudharsan, whose innings-saving fifty had lifted Gujarat to 168, admitted during the innings break that he was unsure whether the total was even par on the surface. Sunil Gavaskar, who had termed the wicket a belter during the pitch report, later suggested GT were still 10-15 runs short. Yet, midway through the chase, that assessment already felt irrelevant. Gujarat’s bowlers dismantled SRH’s destructive batting unit, bundling them out for just 86 in 14.5 overs.
GT, who had hovered around the middle of the table for much of the season, surged to the top for the first time in IPL 2026 and now have one foot firmly in the playoffs. The larger picture shows that their revival has been built almost entirely around their bowling transformation.
From an economy rate of 9.66 in their first seven games — fifth worst among all teams until April 24 — during which they lost four matches, Gujarat drastically improved their bowling numbers to 8.0, the best in the league since April 26, a period in which they strung together five consecutive wins. A closer look, however, reveals that the turnaround stemmed from a subtle but decisive tweak in their powerplay bowling plans.
The Bentley-Rolls Royce effect
In their first seven games, Gujarat rotated between six bowling options in the powerplay. While they still managed 10 wickets at 9.24 runs per over — respectable numbers in a season where powerplay scoring rates have touched an all-time high of 10 — it reflected a lack of clarity in execution.
Following back-to-back defeats against Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bengaluru last month, GT simplified their approach and placed Kagiso Rabada and Mohammed Siraj firmly at the centre of their new-ball strategy. Coincidentally, the pair had already accounted for all 10 of GT’s powerplay wickets in those opening seven matches.
Siraj played the containing role brilliantly, conceding just 7.17 runs per over while picking up three wickets, whereas Rabada capitalised on the pressure from the opposite end to snare seven wickets at a strike rate of almost one every two overs.
For the next five matches — all GT victories — Rabada and Siraj bowled three overs each inside the powerplay, something never before seen in the IPL’s 19-season history. The impact was immediate. Gujarat’s powerplay economy improved to 7.8, the best in the league during that phase, while they picked up 15 wickets. The only other team to reach double digits for wickets in the same period was RCB with 11. GT’s strike rate also improved dramatically from 25.2 to 12.
Rabada claimed nine of those wickets at 7.8 runs per over with a wicket every 10 balls, while Siraj chipped in with six wickets at an even better economy rate of 7.6. Their dominance was on full display again on Tuesday night in Ahmedabad. Siraj dismissed Travis Head for a duck in the opening over before Rabada, using clever variations in line and length, removed Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Smaran Ravichandran in successive overs.
By the end of the sixth over, all discussions around whether 168 was a competitive total had vanished. SRH’s top-order collapse had effectively sealed the contest. Gavaskar perhaps summed it up best on air: “Bentley from one end, Rolls Royce from the other.”
Making sense of GT’s Rabada-Siraj masterplan
Former India batting coach Sanjay Bangar perhaps explained Gujarat’s strategy best. According to him, GT’s confidence in the quality of their remaining attack — Jason Holder, Rashid Khan and Prasidh Krishna — gave them the freedom to commit heavily to Rabada and Siraj upfront, something even teams like SRH and RCB cannot consistently afford.
“It also tells you that if there’s one massive positive about the Impact Player rule, it is that there are no easy overs anymore in T20 cricket — not the first over, not the seventh, where you would earlier expect someone to bowl those easier overs. Every over is now critical to the outcome of the game, and that’s where deploying your most important resources right at the top has been GT’s biggest strength,” Bangar told ESPNCricinfo.
“SRH do not have that same quality. They only have Pat Cummins in that role, and he hasn’t been available throughout the season. Eshan Malinga, meanwhile, is more suited to the middle and death overs rather than the powerplay.
“Now look at RCB. You immediately think of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood. But are their third, fourth and fifth bowling options equally capable of controlling the game if teams survive the first six overs? That’s where GT are different. Even if Rabada and Siraj bowl four overs each inside the first eight overs, Gujarat still have enough quality to comfortably handle the remaining overs,” he added.
Former India batter Ambati Rayudu, part of the same panel, credited the duo’s success to an old-school Test-match philosophy: relentless discipline.
“I think they are simply bowling high-quality deliveries consistently. If you notice, they repeatedly hit hard lengths — just short of a good length — trying to induce edges or hit the top of off stump. They are not constantly changing deliveries out of fear of becoming predictable or getting taken down.
“That approach has worked for teams I’ve played for in the past as well. The focus is on consistency and forcing the batter to take risks against good deliveries, rather than constantly trying to second-guess the batter. Instead of bowling six different balls, the idea is to bowl six good balls,” Rayudu said.