Krunal Pandya was RCB's second-leading wicket-taker last season.
Krunal Pandya was one of the biggest reasons behind RCB’s immense success in IPL 2025, as he contributed as an all-rounder by stepping up at numerous points. A notable feature was his ability to pick wickets and remain unpredictable by bowling different lengths and variations throughout the tournament.
In an interview with ESPNcricinfo, Krunal talked about a range of aspects, from varying his pace and lengths to extracting bounce from the surface. Crediting Malolan Rangarajan for his progress, he revealed that he now puts more body into his deliveries, which helps him get more bounce and zip on flat pitches.
“I have worked on my skill set also over a period of time, which has helped me gain that extra bounce. If you compare my action in 2020-21 to now, there is a significant change: back then, I used to be [delivering from the] corner of the crease, (and) I had a longer stride. And now I have become much taller in my action, so I have that bounce, and I get some zip from the wicket.”
Krunal Pandya also added that he never attempts those bouncers and wide yorkers in the nets, and his focus remains on classic left-arm spin bowling during the practice drills. His evolution as a bowler was visible last season, where he was RCB’s second-leading wicket-taker with 17 wickets at 22.29 runs apiece and an economy rate of 8.23 in 15 outings, including a four-wicket haul.
Krunal Pandya has always been a quality operator; he has now added more bowling smarts and a better understanding of his game. Last season, he used bouncers and mixed them brilliantly with good lengths: around 24% of his deliveries were short, which earned him 35.29% of total wickets.
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Then, his pace variation was also spot-on throughout the edition, as he didn’t bowl those quicker ones consistently and instead deployed them smartly within overs to get wickets. That obviously made his natural pace all the more threatening, which helped him get most of his wickets in the season.
RCB have multiple concerns in the bowling department, with Josh Hazlewood set to miss the initial few matches and Yash Dayal’s availability uncertain. That leaves them with multiple inexperienced options, and Krunal Pandya will need to do the heavy lifting again.
As a batter, he might get some promotion at times since RCB have only one LHB in the batting unit and might need to break a chain of RHBs. But that will be a secondary role; the defending champions would want him to perform consistently with the ball and share the workload with other bowlers.
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