Close your eyes and tell me: who is the leading six-hitter in the end overs (between 16 and 20) in IPL 2026? Tim David? Of course, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) finisher has whacked 13 in 48 balls in this phase so far. But guess who is second. Heinrich Klaasen? Good shout, but wrong answer. It’s Rajasthan Royals (RR) finisher Donovan Ferreira, who is level with David (13 in 53 balls), with Klaasen behind him (12 in 101 balls).
Batting, and more specifically boundary-hitting, has shot through the roof this IPL. Some of the competition’s top bowlers are trying to counter the rampaging batters with the yorker, which for long has been the best defensive option in T20 cricket.
Eshan Malinga and Bhuvneshwar Kumar have challenged batters with reverse-swinging yorkers at the death. Anshul Kamboj, who was once a new-ball bowler in T20 cricket, darts yorkers exclusively from around the wicket at the death to hide the ball away from the swinging arcs of right-hand batters.
T Natarajan is one of the best exponents of the yorker in the IPL. Yet, Ferreira is so good that he can drill out balls from the blockhole and send them to the boundary. He didn’t even spare Mitchell Starc in Jaipur on May 1. The last ball of Starc’s spell was a yorker – or just short of the perfect yorker length – on a fourth-stump line. Ferreira was so deep in the crease that he managed to get underneath the ball and smoked it over the covers off the cue end of the bat for six.
In recent times, Ferreira has been among the elite six-hitters in franchise leagues around the world, including in the Hundred. Since the start of 2025, he has crashed 52 sixes in 286 balls between overs 16 and 20 in T20 cricket. Only Sherfane Rutherford (71), Romario Shepherd (66) and Rovman Powell (62) have hit more sixes than Ferreira during this phase. Now, with his sixes off yorkers against Starc and Natarajan, Ferreira has arrived in the IPL.
Albie Morkel, who has worked closely with Ferreira at Joburg Super Kings in the SA20, Texas Super Kings in the USA’s MLC and Titans in South African domestic cricket, attributes the batter’s power to a combination of natural ability and skills honed in training.
“It’s his natural ability to hit the cricket ball hard,” Morkel told ESPNcricinfo. “Then with a few drills and exercises we do, you try to perfect that [bat] swing, so when the bowler misses his mark, you try to get the percentage as high as possible so that it goes for six. I think in the past, batters would try to find the boundary through fours but it’s now changed. Guys are so powerful that they would rather try to hit sixes.
“You get days when bowlers nail the yorker and they don’t give you an option to hit the ball over their heads or [to] cow corner. The option against the yorker is the lap [shot], which Donovan doesn’t do much yet, but I know he’s sort of working on it. The other option is to try to slice it away. There are two options against the yorker and he’s nailed one. The first thing you need is power and he’s got a lot of that.”
Ferreira’s batting screamed power right from his club cricket days. Morkel and Mandla Mashimbyi, the former Titans coach who is currently in charge of South Africa women, were so impressed that they dragged him out of his civilian life as a sales rep to a full-time professional cricketer at Titans.
“It wasn’t easy for Donovan at the time, when he was a club cricketer working an eight-to-five job at a cricket company, IXU, and it took a year or so for him to sort of get a break and get his first [Titans] contract,” Morkel said. “After that, he did really well domestically. The skill set he possesses – the ability to keep, bowl offspin, and obviously finish [an innings] – make him a high-value commodity.”
RR, though, managed to get Ferreira cheap for INR 1 crore, via a trade. He has now emerged as their primary finisher, keeping the more experienced Shimron Hetmyer on the bench.
“I think Donovan is in a place now where he is making the first XIs whereas in the past he sat on the side in the IPL,” Morkel said. “If you reach a stage where you’re almost one of the first names on the team list, it gives you great confidence. In franchise cricket, he’s one of the first picks.”
Ferreira isn’t as strong against spin as he is against pace, but he is certainly levelling up. From 2018, when he made his T20 debut, till the end of 2024, his strike rate against spin was 150.14. Since the start of 2025, that has jumped to almost 165.
Before RR’s previous game, Ferreira had been dismissed twice by Kuldeep Yadav in nine balls for 15 runs. So DC held an over of the left-arm wristspinner back for the death, but when they matched him up with this new version of Ferreira, he took him for 19 off five balls.
“It’s always a challenge for power-hitters when guys take pace off and they can be vulnerable to spin,” Morkel said. “But I think Donovan has figured out a way, especially step-hit if the guys bowl full and put them under pressure. It’s a little bit different when you’re in trouble. If you’re a couple of wickets down, you need to build an innings and I think that’s one area he can improve. But he’s especially dangerous when the scoreboard tells him what to do.
“He’s reaching a stage where he trusts his own ability and strengths. He knows his strengths and weaknesses and adapts his game around that.”
Beware of this new version of Ferreira.
Stats as of May 8, 2026 before DC vs KKR
