The Dualities of the Indian Premier League

CHENNAI: Like anything in life, the Indian Premier League (IPL) too has its dualities.

For most parts of the season, it felt like the IPL 2026 would carry on from its ancestors to provide a real spectacle for the batters. Especially when you see scores like 264/2 being chased down with seven balls to spare.

Or when you see an entire day of IPL’s play, where the cumulative totals nearly add up to a thousand runs, you expect it to continue in that fashion.

But then comes days like Sunday, which remind you, ‘Hey, the grass isn’t always green, sometimes it is a bit brown’. In the first clash on Sunday, the bowlers were back in business, as Gujarat Titans reduced Chennai Super Kings to 158/7, when normally any score under 200 was deemed unacceptable.

Then to follow that up came Lucknow Super Giants’ clash against Kolkata Knight Riders, which really restored parity, and showed why low-scoring thrillers are quite interesting in the first place, a 155/7 meets 155/8 on a venue where both pacers and spinners dominated proceedings equally.

If it was Mohsin Khan earlier for LSG, it was the spin duo of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakaravarthy who turned things around for KKR, in a match that went to the super over. Yes, the climax of the movie was rather underwhelming but it was very different from the trend, it wasn’t a story where the superhero was just bashing goons for fun, chasing after a heroine, whose dad didn’t give a seal of approval to their relationship.

It was a Christopher Nolan-esque movie, where every single action made you hold on to your seat, in a weirdly satisfying way. In fact, in many ways than one, it is that clash which would have invoked the child in you, and summoned it back to life.

But what happened on Sunday was just a trailer.

Because what happened on Monday seldom happens in the 2020s, forget 2026.

Or maybe we did get a small glimpse of it, when Sunrisers Hyderabad had reduced Rajasthan Royals to 5/9. Ah, it did remind you of all the good ol’ Test matches, where teams visiting England and Australia would be put under the pump like this.

However, on Monday, it wasn’t a trailer but a rather full-length movie, that literally spelt doom for the Delhi Capitals. After all, it was a batting unit which only days ago put PBKS under the pump, scoring 264, with KL Rahul himself scoring 150.

Have you processed that yet? Because what I will be telling you in a few seconds will leave you gobsmacked, the same side was folded for just 75. You read that right, 75 RUNS! In fact, at one point, it felt like actually watching a match in England, with James Anderson in his full flow, as the hosts scored a grand total of 13 runs, losing SIX WICKETS!!

Cricket, you cheeky rascal, where were you all these days when it felt like every game was being played on some of the grand highways of the world? Such was RCB’s new ball bowling pair, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood, that they left even the feared DC batting unit to go fetch water in the desert.

Every delivery that came DC’s way would have most definitely made them feel like they were batting on a windy morning at Lord’s, with a red Kookaburra in their hand.

If Bhuvneshwar was getting balls to shape like hairbends closing in on a hill station, his bowling partner, Hazlewood was cranking up the pace like Ferrari’s horsepower depended solely on his bowling. When you combine that with the slippery slopes, it could only go one way – and so it went, all downhill for the Capitals.

Oh, the dualities of the IPL, how you have been dearly missed.