Pitch No. 5 made its third appearance in IPL 2026 on Monday, and it carried a nostalgic feel reminiscent of older Chepauk days. The ball didn’t just come onto the bat; it tended to die on the way, with plenty of action happening before it reached the batter. Surfaces like this have historically rewarded bowlers who can batter the edge, and it also looked like a throwback kind of wicket—one where Dwayne Bravo’s dipping deliveries used to be especially punishing.
Yet for all the familiarity the pitch offered, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) were the side that adapted better than the hosts, Chennai Super Kings (CSK), and it showed in how the innings unfolded.
SRH’s seamers leaned heavily on slower options, with nearly 40% of their deliveries in that channel arriving at a reduced pace—39 out of 102 balls, based on match logs. Those slower variations proved decisive: they produced four wickets while keeping CSK to 49 runs in total. CSK, by contrast, used pace as their main weapon, and only 17% of the balls they bowled at similar reduced speed—12 of 72—were slower ones. That plan brought little reward in wicket terms; CSK failed to break partnerships through pace-off bowling and, instead, surrendered 23 runs when they tried to slow things down. It was a fine margin, but the match’s critical swing came from exactly that contrast.
SRH did not instantly crack the conditions after being asked to bowl first, either. Nitish Kumar Reddy looked for swing early but overcorrected, landing too full and conceding two fours and a six to Sanju Samson in the opening over. Then, in the third over, Pat Cummins struck a more precise line and length, getting Samson to nick behind with a near-140kph delivery set up on a Test-style length.
With Urvil Patel promoted to No. 3, Cummins altered the field to suit the plan: a close-in catching option at short square-leg and another positioned deeper at deep square-leg. The idea was to bounce Urvil, echoing the kind of approach Kagiso Rabada had used at the same venue just last month. This time, the outcome turned in SRH’s favour in a different way—Urvil stayed firm and pulled Cummins over the fielder stationed in the deep.
After that, SRH leaned into what the pitch was offering, sticking with the slower ball and bowling into the surface rather than chasing movement. James Franklin, SRH’s pace-bowling coach, explained after the win: “We thought there might be something in the pitch. That proved to be the case. It likely wasn’t our best start with the ball, and it wasn’t until Pat came in around the third over and got the breakthrough of Sanju. After that, we gathered more information about the pitch—that taking the pace off into the surface would be effective from the seamers. And it was effective throughout the innings, so we executed it much better.”
Even when Kartik Sharma looked like he could rise above the conditions, Cummins again took pace away and shaped the ball out of the batter’s swinging zone. With deep point and sweeper cover in place, Sharma couldn’t generate enough speed to put the bad balls away and eventually mistimed a hit, perishing at sweeper cover.
Cummins’ craft with pace variation isn’t new, but his ability to make it count in T20s has evolved over time. He burst into international cricket as a searing-pace bowler in 2011, following a rough spell against Mitchell Marsh in a Sheffield Shield match in Sydney. Later that year, in his first Test, he peppered Jacques Kallis with sharp short balls in Johannesburg. Even now, he still competes with Mitchell Starc’s express pace in Australia nets, but he has recently developed another edge—confounding batters with a deliberate lack of pace. Since IPL 2024, when he joined SRH, no overseas bowler has bowled more slower deliveries than Cummins’ 154.
Franklin also praised the way Cummins reads situations. “Pat has got class,” he said. “He has an amazing ability to adapt to what a game needs or what a surface needs. His execution is as high as it gets. He’s among the elite bowlers in the world right now because he can adapt not just to conditions, but to game situations, and still have an impact. Tonight he read the wicket, he used his cutters a lot, and I think that sort of skillset has really grown over the last couple of years of playing the IPL.”
Sakib Hussain, though far less experienced—making his IPL debut this season—offered a similarly impressive handle on the slower ball. Out of his 24 deliveries, 18 were slower ones, and he conceded just 23 runs from that batch while collecting two wickets. His cutter that knocked Shivam Dube over in the 19th over was the kind of strike that sums up control: not just pace-off, but pace-off with the right intent.
Franklin highlighted Sakib’s learning curve as well. “Everyone might have seen what a weapon his slower ball is,” he said. “He’s learning a lot every game he plays. Not every match will be perfect because he’s a young bowler and still raw, but when he nails his execution and adapts to what the game needs and what the surface needs, he’s been brilliant for us. And obviously, the surface tonight really suited his slow ball.”
When CSK went after the target, their bowling plans in the chase flipped towards pace, which effectively turned down the pressure valve on the final home game of their season. Spencer Johnson’s raw pace didn’t have the same effect on this wicket, while Anshul’s Kamboj’s on-pace length balls were more gettable for Ishan Kishan, who made sure the batting side stayed in rhythm. The pitch also exposed a key limitation in CSK’s bowling unit: they did not have a bowler capable of defending deliveries as effectively as Cummins or Sakib had done for SRH.
CSK coach Stephen Fleming pointed directly to that mismatch. “They [SRH] have had to use cutters in their wicket, which is very good,” he said. “So they went to that pretty well with Pat Cummins leading the way. Our bowlers are more seam bowlers. This was the first time we’ve had a pitch that’s slow and holding, and we didn’t get the same assistance.”
Fleming also considered the wicket’s consistency. “I felt there might have been a little bit of moisture from dew. I’m not sure, but it certainly wasn’t as inconsistent as what we felt in the first innings. We felt 180 on that wicket, getting slower, maybe was going to be a good score. They had a good partnership with [Heinrich] Klaasen and Ishan Kishan, which maybe blunted us a little bit. But yeah, I felt we weren’t able to get the same amount of inconsistency as what they did.”
In the end, the divergence between the two teams ran deeper than tactics. CSK’s season is now on the edge of elimination, while SRH have already booked their place in the playoffs and are still very much in the mix for a top-two finish—an outcome that felt fitting given how decisively they used the pitch once they understood it.
