What is a good strike rate?
In absolute terms, there’s no good answer to that question, because context is everything. In IPL 2008, only six batters ended the season with 200-plus runs at a 150-plus strike rate. IPL 2026 is far from over, and 25 batters have already ticked off those boxes.
Dhruv Jurel is one of those 25. He’s scored 290 runs at 151.04, with three half-centuries in ten innings. These numbers would have been exceptional in 2008. In 2026, not so much.
Jurel is Rajasthan Royals‘ (RR) designated No. 3. It’s a key position in a batting line-up, demanding immense flexibility. The ideal No. 3 is something like a third opener blessed with either more power or a wider range of scoring zones – ideally both – to keep finding the boundary consistently post-powerplay, and someone who scores quickly off both pace and spin.
It’s a tricky role, and RR clearly think Jurel is blessed with the attributes to be able to play it. And no one who’s watched him bat at any level would deny this.
But is he ready for that role right now, in 2026?
Each of RR’s last three matches may have brought this question to your mind. Against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) last week, he scored 51 off 35 in a match where RR made 228 and lost. In RR’s successful chase of 223 against Punjab Kings (PBKS) three days later, he scored 16 off 20 when RR went into a post-powerplay rut against spin.
And on Friday against Delhi Capitals (DC), Jurel scored 42 off 30 when RR posted 225 and lost. Two successive losses when you’ve made 220-plus totals is a worry for any team, suggestive of runs being left out in the middle. Against DC, RR went through two phases when they may have done this.
Let’s start with the second one, the promotion of Ravindra Jadeja above Donovan Ferreira when RR lost their third wicket, in the 12th over of their innings. In form terms, Ferreira would be one of the two or three last batters anyone would want to bowl to in the latter third of an IPL innings. Jadeja has had one of the great all-round careers in the IPL, but bowlers do not fear him in the same way.
RR’s reasoning, as put forth by their captain Riyan Parag after the match, was classic RR. This is a team that has always valued entry points. Four years ago, they promoted R Ashwin as something of a pinch-anchor before retiring him out (the first use of that tactic in the IPL) when they felt time was running out to send in Parag, whom they then viewed as an end-overs pace-hitter. Kumar Sangakkara was RR’s coach then, and he’s back in that role this year. Parag is now their captain.
Jadeja’s promotion, Parag said, was partly to have a left-right combination at the crease. But it was mostly about the entry point. “There [were] eight-nine overs to go, and we wanted to delay it [Ferrerira’s entry point] a little bit and like just get a few [overs at] like eight-nine an over from the spinners, and then go from ball one when the seamers started to bowl.”
There’s something to be said about ensuring your best death-overs hitter is at the crease when the death overs begin, and Ferreira showed this with his unbeaten 14-ball 47. Only a handful of batters in the world, for instance, possess the power and hitting technique that allowed Ferreira to clear the ropes off T Natarajan’s low full-tosses in the final over.
What was striking, however, was RR’s ambitions for the overs before Ferreira’s entry. Jadeja’s struggles to score quickly against spin are widely known, but from Parag’s words, it would seem RR weren’t even asking him to try.
It’s an outmoded way of constructing a T20 innings for a team batting first. Especially in the IPL, where chasing is such an advantage at most venues; to not contest an over or two at full intensity is to risk posting a below-par total. RR have discovered over their last two bat-first games that 228 and 225 can be below-par totals in 2026.
And if RR batted with muted ambitions when Jadeja was at the crease, they also did so through the 102-run partnership between Parag and Jurel.
The classic example came in the ninth over of the innings, which began with RR 71 for 2. They had lost Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi early, but the rebuilding this had entailed now seemed to be done. And RR seemed to acknowledge this when Parag hit Axar Patel for two towering sixes at the start of the ninth over.
RR had put Axar under tremendous pressure; this was a chance to force him into more errors and maximise this over. Instead, Parag and Jurel only attempted to rotate the strike off the last four balls, and ended up scoring two singles and two dots.
The next over, from Kuldeep Yadav, only produced six runs, and once more the intent from both ends was to work or punch the ball to deep fielders and collect ones or twos. This was a new bowler coming into the attack and settling without being put under any pressure.
And if Parag stepped out of this bunker every now and then to try and force the pace, Jurel seemed happy playing second fiddle. This idea, again, is fast disappearing from the IPL. If you aren’t going hard from both ends – except in specific cases where one batter looks to get the other on strike against a specific match-up – you’re leaving runs out in the middle.
It’s hard to say if it’s a question of intent or instruction, but Jurel has been batting this way through much of IPL 2026. Of all batters in the tournament who have faced 100-plus balls in the first ten overs, he has the third-worst strike rate behind Rishabh Pant and Ruturaj Gaikwad – who are both widely acknowledged to be struggling – and the fourth-worst balls-per-boundary rate – Ajinkya Rahane, whose issues outside the powerplay are well-documented, sneaks above him here.
It’s no knock on Jurel’s raw ability or potential to say that he isn’t batting like an IPL No. 3 should in 2026. It’s certainly not beyond him to find that next level. The IPL is full of examples of top-order batters who didn’t quite meet the demands of the role initially but have now added several gears to their game: Shreyas Iyer, for example, or Devdutt Padikkal.
Or even KL Rahul, who this season has struck at 211.01 in the middle overs (7-16), after years and years of holding back in that phase to build up for a big finish. Even he doesn’t think that’s a good idea any more.
At two different moments on Friday night, however, RR showed they might still be holding on to an outmoded way of playing. It puts them in a funny place. They have honed some of the most exciting homegrown talent in the league – Jaiswal, Sooryavanshi, Parag and Jurel are all RR projects if not out-and-out RR products, and Sanju Samson spent all his formative years at the franchise – but their in-game thinking can sometimes feel worryingly behind the times.
