Jacob Duffy bowled a brilliant spell.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) didn’t feel Josh Hazlewood’s absence at any stage once Jacob Duffy made his IPL debut last night. He was bought as a backup, but his superior powerplay skills came to the fore immediately on a deck with some extra bounce. He broke the game in the initial few overs itself.
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RCB were tactically wise to frontload Jacob Duffy’s overs, giving him four on the trot. It was only the fifth instance where an opening pacer bowled four consecutive overs in IPL since 2024. So, it’s rare, but RCB knew what they were doing.
Duffy searched for some swing in his first over, which he extracted, but early movement hardly lasts for long these days. Then, Abhishek Sharma also hit a maximum off the fourth delivery. That second over by Bhuvneshwar Kumar gave him an idea to target Travis Head and Abhishek’s bodies by cramping them for room.
Bhuvi kept his lines straight throughout the over and forced batters to play from close to the body. Both can have issues with this line when bowled on the shorter length because their control on pull shots remains low, and chances of wickets surge since they play aerial shots. Since 2025, Travis Head has a control% of just 50, while Abhishek has controlled pull shots only 50.62% of the time.
So, when Duffy returned for his second over, he immediately pulled his lengths back and asked the batters to go for that high-risk, high-reward shot. The trap worked immediately, as Abhishek was dismissed on the first ball of Jacob Duffy’s second over, before Head also lost his wicket five balls later on the pull shot. The line becomes a crucial aspect even while bowling short balls against both Abhishek and Head.
For instance, Abhishek has a strike rate of 207.36 and has been dismissed seven times on back-of-a-length or short balls on the stump or leg line. On the wider lines, the strike rate surges to 251.11 with just one dismissal. Travis Head has also lost his wicket thrice on the stumps line and twice on outside off stump or wider lines.
Soon, Nitish Kumar Reddy, who has a control% of 50 on pull shots, also lost his wicket with a short ball, as Duffy made a dream debut. Last season, around 60% of total wickets fell to short balls at M Chinnaswamy Stadium. This deck was tailor-made for Duffy, who was smart enough to shorten his lengths from the second over onwards.
After bowling all six length balls or fuller (including a full-toss) in his first set, Duffy delivered around 42.10% back-of-a-length deliveries. They fetched him all three wickets on the day. It was a perfect spell on precisely the deck he needed to kick-start his IPL career.
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