The IPL began nearly two decades ago, and the league has since produced 1,172 matches that have gone the distance to decide winners and losers. Yet one particular tactical pattern stands out just as sharply now as it did in the latest meeting between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings: right-arm fast bowlers attacking right-handed batters from around the wicket. That approach has been used 22 times in the head-to-head sample, counting deliveries that went for wides and even no-balls. The next two most frequent instances also belong to the same season of IPL 2026 and again feature CSK, with the same angle appearing 19 times in each case.
CSK, especially Anshul Kamboj, have leaned hard into this line during the current campaign. For SRH, Praful Hinge found his way into a similar matchup rhythm but with a different outcome in the final over. Even after cutting back once and conceding a no-ball along the way, Hinge still delivered the entire last over to right-hand batters from around the wicket. That was a notable shift given his earlier returns—he had conceded 54 runs across his first three balls of the contest.
That final-over spell produced pressure rather than panic at the other end. In total, four wickets were lost and only 24 runs came from those 22 deliveries. Kamboj completed two overs for nine runs and struck three times, dismissing Heinrich Klaasen, Liam Livingstone and Shivang Kumar. The wickets falling in quick succession also forced SRH to revise their original endgame plan, with Livingstone being selected as the impact batter instead.
Even though Kamboj is primarily a seam bowler who would naturally prefer the new-ball advantage of operating over the wicket, his numbers this season show a clear preference for around-the-wicket work against right-handers. So far in IPL 2026, he has bowled 58 balls to right-handed batters from around the wicket, returning 8.58 runs per over while taking six wickets. By contrast, deliveries from over the wicket to the same group total 40 balls, at 10.8 runs per over with four wickets. In the back end of innings, he has bowled 60 balls to right-hand batters, and he has only gone over the wicket twice in that phase.
Hinge’s example underlines that it isn’t only Kamboj chasing the same tactic. Kamboj’s influence will naturally stand out in the aggregate figures, but the larger pattern is what matters. In 27 matches to date, 17% of balls bowled by right-arm fast bowlers to right-hand batters at the death have been from around the wicket. At the same stage in earlier seasons, this angle has rarely been used at that scale—only once prior to now has it exceeded 11%, and that was back in 2015.
There’s little mystery in why bowlers keep returning to the same solution. When pitches turn flatter, batting lineups grow deeper due to the impact-player rules, and hitters become more willing to attack, the wide channels can start to feel like the safest place to hide risk. Whatever the reason—whether it’s to cut down predictability or because straight yorkers look too dangerous—fast bowlers have been holding their nerve on the wide lines. The evidence can be seen in the rise of wides at the death: roughly 8% over the last three years, following a steady climb from 4.5% in 2020.
Still, whether around-the-wicket bowling provides bowlers with any extra edge when they’re trying to conceal the ball wide outside off remains open to debate. The plan, more often than not, is to attack the wide corridor while using straight bowling mainly as a variation rather than the default. From over the wicket, there is typically a little more freedom to execute wide calls, but operating around the wicket can make it easier to land the outer half of the bat more frequently.
That said, the tactic always comes with compromises. It can create a blind spot outside the leg stump and can make certain leg-side scoring shots slightly tougher for batters. But if there were no trade-offs, the game would never see bowlers return over the wicket at all.
Most likely, the current attraction is partly novelty. If batters are already set to hit through the air and around the ground, bowlers may as well try something different rather than defaulting to the same angles. And zooming out a bit suggests the pattern has been resurfacing: after 2015, around-the-wicket bowling has increasingly reappeared as a last resort when other options haven’t produced enough control in the later overs.
So far, the numbers point to a clear benefit. This route has delivered both a stronger economy rate and a better bowling average against right-handers at the death compared with bowling over the wicket. Whether that edge holds will ultimately depend on how quickly batters adjust to the angle—and whether they’re able to turn the bowlers’ wide-hugging plans into scoring opportunities instead of escape routes.
