New Delhi: For a week now, the IPL has felt like a batting montage on loop — mammoth totals, clean hits, records set, records broken, bowlers reduced to supporting cast. On a Monday evening against the Delhi Capitals, pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood took things personally, flipped the script and handed Royal Challengers Bengaluru a comfortable nine-wicket win.
For six overs, the Feroz Shah Kotla stopped behaving like a T20 venue. It played tricks, it whispered and the ball talked. You could have mistaken it for an early-morning session at an English venue, the kind where bowlers don’t just participate, they dictate proceedings.
RCB’s new-ball pair didn’t just exploit the conditions, they thrived in them. Swing in the air, seam off the pitch, and discipline in line and length crafted a masterclass in bowling. One that served as a reminder that Test-match lengths can still make you stop and stare. By the time the PowerPlay ended, the game was effectively over.
Six wickets fell in the first four overs. Edges drawn, bodies cramped, decisions rushed, slip catches taken. Delhi Capitals weren’t counterattacking, they were surviving, briefly. Captain Axar Patel believed it was perhaps a case of not being able to adapt to the pitch, which had served up a batter’s paradise in the last match.
It began with Bhuvneshwar. An inswinging yorker first up, tailing in late, uprooted the idea of a dream debut for Sahil Parakh. From there, the collapse gained rhythm.
KL Rahul, fresh off one of the great centuries in the previous game, was hurried by Hazlewood — back of a length, climbing just enough. The pull came half-formed and the top edge was inevitable.
Sameer Rizvi followed, another classic Test-match length dismissal, with Hazlewood effecting it. It was drawn into the corridor with a fuller length, edging behind while trying to force the issue.
There was no let-up even after the PowerPlay. Tristan Stubbs flirted with an outswinger he didn’t need to play. Axar Patel was undone by movement and patience, the ball sneaked off the bottom edge. Nitish Rana, hurried by a sharp short ball, fended awkwardly to gully.
At 13/6, Delhi weren’t just struggling — they were rewriting the record books. Albeit in a way they wouldn’t want to remember. It is now the lowest PowerPlay score in IPL history, and only the second instance of a side losing six wickets inside that phase.
Numbers, though, only tell part of the story. This was about control, it was about two bowlers shrinking a format that has lately felt too big for them. Bhuvneshwar’s 3/5 and Hazlewood’s 4/12 ensured relentless probing, offering no escape or release shot and effectively preventing any momentum shift.
David Miller and Impact Player Abishek Porel made a brief attempt to arrest the slide, but it always carried the air of inevitability. The spinners, Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma, merely tightened what was already a vice. Hazlewood returned to close things out, finishing with 4/12 as Porel’s resistance ended.
“I just followed Bhuvi,” said player of the match Josh Hazlewood. “There was a little bit there in the first six overs. It was a little bit up and down. Once the ball got soft it became consistent. You want the batter to hit down the V, but I thought there was something in the wicket in that area, then I thought to hit the pitch, it was nice to see the ball hit the higher part of the bat.”
Chasing a mere 76, RCB made lightwork of the chase, nailing it down in 6.3 overs. Jacob Bethell (20) unleashed himself with a few memorable shots before he fell to Kyle Jamieson. Meanwhile, Devdutt Padikkal came out and played two stunning lofts over extra-cover which went all the way.
Devdutt Padikkal, looking like a million bucks this season, powered to an unbeaten 13-ball 34. Virat Kohli (23*) put the finishing touches on the game. It may not have been the RCB batting show that Delhi’s crowd turned up for but in a tournament tilting heavily towards batters, this was a reminder that conditions still matter, skill still matters, and on certain evenings, bowlers can still make this format feel their own.