It was a night designed for big hitting. Gujarat Titans’ 210 looked like a modest enough total at the halfway stage, yet it was only just preserved off the final delivery. Even when scores climb to the sort of level that often neutralises bowlers, Rashid Khan cut through the noise: he finished with 3/17 and kept things tight at an economy rate of 4.25, while nearly everyone else around him was being punished. In Delhi, under the lights and with plenty of attention on the visitors, Rashid looked like he’d rewound the clock—delivering a stingy spell that disrupted Delhi Capitals’ pursuit and, more importantly, prevented the contest from swinging decisively in Gujarat’s direction immediately.
At the start, it was hardly dramatic—just a hint of unsettled rhythm. In the fifth over of the Powerplay, KL Rahul was beaten outside the edge by a sharp legbreak that spun away viciously. Rahul smiled; Rashid grinned. From that point, the damage didn’t come in bursts against Rahul, but the spinner kept creating problems around him. For his opening couple of overs, Delhi’s batters were comfortable enough to rotate the strike and absorb what was coming.
That changed in Rashid’s third over. Nitish Rana went after a slog on the wrong ‘un and mistimed it, sending the ball to long-on—two deliveries later, after Rana had even managed to get an LBW decision overturned on an attempted sweep earlier in the sequence. Then, on the last ball of the over, Rashid struck again, delivering the kind of moment that instantly swings momentum: he produced a golden duck for Delhi’s most in-form batter.
Sameer Rizvi—who had been Player of the Match in DC’s two victories up to Wednesday—looked completely off balance against a ripping googly that turned back into the right-hander. The ball snuck through the gate and crashed into the stumps. Rashid’s celebration for that wicket revealed how much it meant in that particular context.
Rashid’s spell didn’t just take wickets; it finished them with purpose. Delhi were dismissed by the 14th over, and Rashid capped off his match-altering sequence with another important breakthrough, following a plan that was clearly worked out in advance. To the left-handed Axar Patel, Rashid—after his last over of the night—chose to go around the wicket. The googly came away from the batter, and Axar sliced it towards extra cover.
All three of Rashid’s victims ended up trapped in single-digit territory. Each dismissal came to established spin users, but in each case the wicket was secured by the specific googly they knew was coming—yet still couldn’t quite account for in time. The question that lingered over the previous two IPL seasons had been whether batters had finally caught up to Rashid. In Delhi, at least, the answer was a firm “not just yet.”
After a successful IPL 2023, Rashid went against medical advice and pushed through to play the Men’s ODI World Cup. His back issue worsened to the point that he couldn’t walk. Later in 2023, the Afghanistan legspinner underwent a procedure that kept him out until early 2024. When he returned, Rashid Khan looked like he was operating in the shadow of his previous self—managing his back carefully amid a packed calendar.
His trademark pace—the main weapon in his T20 dominance—dropped. His lengths began to waver. Accuracy slipped, and with those changes went the intimidation factor that had defined him for so long. He lost the zip, and along with it, the rhythm that is essential to how he executes his skills. The numbers underlined the shift.
In IPL 2024, the legspinner managed only 10 wickets in 12 matches, at an average of 36.70 and a strike-rate of 26.2. His economy rate jumped to 8.40 from 7.08. In 2025 the decline was even sharper: nine wickets in 15 innings, a 57.11 average, a strike-rate of 36.6, and an economy of 9.34. After what was by far the least convincing stretch of his decade-long league career, Rashid took a break from cricket for three months—switching off mentally while also improving his fitness to extend his career.
In the post-match press conference, Rashid explained the thinking behind the pause and what he felt changed after surgery. “After the surgery, I was very, very careful with my back. That affected my bowling action, the release and everything. So, I was trying to be careful but with that, I missed a little bit of my rhythm. I was [deliberately] trying to bowl slow for 2-3-4 months,” he said. He added: “After having a bad season [IPL 2025] I thought, ‘okay, what’s wrong now? Where I’m, what’s the thing I’m missing?’ And I felt like it was the whole rhythm, from start to finish. [When I thought of what was holding me back], it was a bit of pain in the back still. I was scared of, like, what’s gonna happen if I push it again?”
Rashid continued: “So, yeah, I gave myself a couple of months, three months after the last IPL, and focused on my fitness… I tried my best to just work on my fitness. That’s something which I can improve and that does allow my body to bowl with the full rhythm.”
That added emphasis on strengthening his core helped him regain his speed. Once the pace returned, he started landing on the right lengths again. A strong run at the Hundred in 2025 followed, and the 26-year-old felt that he was back to something close to his best.
On Wednesday, in only his third outing of IPL 2026, Rashid was testing both sides of the bat and getting the ball to spin both ways. With his speed back, the main requirement was simply getting the length correct—then the rewards came naturally.
Rashid Khan vs DC, IPL 2026 (by lengths)
There was no single breakthrough mystery or brand-new variation that explained the turnaround. If anything, Rashid dismissed the idea of a complicated solution. “As a bowler you can’t add so many variations, and then end up confused in the middle. You need to have a few variations, and good ones. And you need to have good control over it. For me, more important is hitting the right areas consistently—whether I bowl leg-spin, wrong ‘un or a flipper. But hitting the right areas consistently—that’s the challenge for me. Every day I try to improve on that and get better [in that aspect],” he said.
He also highlighted how even flat wickets demand discipline from the bowler. “There will be times when you get a flat wicket but what’s more important is that when you’re conceding runs on those wickets, you have to see your line and lengths… If I bowl badly, anybody can hit me.”
Rashid’s view was clear about what matters most under T20 pressure. “As a bowler you should think, ‘okay, what’s the toughest ball I can bowl on this wicket to make it harder for the batter?’ But if you’re making the job easier for the batter, bowling where he wants, then I don’t think these wickets, with these [short] boundaries, are good enough to defend any total. So, it’s more important that you have the control over where you want to bowl.”
In Delhi, that approach worked perfectly. On a pitch that offered very little room for error, Rashid reminded everyone that even when conditions look tailor-made for batting, mastering the basics—line, length, and control—can still decide matches.
