IPL 2026 began with Devdutt Padikkal showing the world a version of himself seldom seen before. Against Gujarat Titans (GT) on Friday, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batter played his second match-defining innings this season – he hit a spotless 55 off 27 balls in a successful chase of 206 – and took us into his new world.
It’s a place where Padikkal himself is new. Having evolved from a talented but relatively sedate batter in T20s into a belligerent one, he has now boarded the new-age bandwagon. Old Padikkal vs new Padikkal makes for interesting comparison.
For starters, his first-ten-balls strike rate of 170.18 this season is by far his highest in an IPL season. It was 126.51 last year, and 74.42 the year before. This IPL began with Padikkal not having hit a six off the first three balls he had faced across all T20s (where ball-by-ball data is available). Six innings into this season, he has hit a six first ball on two occasions. Against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), he flicked a full delivery from Jaydev Unadkat angling into his pads over square leg. Against GT, he whipped Kagiso Rabada long over fine leg.
It takes plenty of effort for sportspersons to go against their natural instincts and evolve with the changing times. Padikkal, though, has transformed his game. In 99 T20 innings until 2024, his strike rate was a modest 131.98. In 22 innings since, that has shot up to 165.36. That strike rate is even higher at 184.07 this IPL.
“It’s a lot to do than just the self-belief that the management has given me, and at the same time, there are a few technical changes that I’ve made over the last couple of years, and you have to just commit to those changes,” Padikkal told the broadcaster after RCB’s win over GT. “Initially, it was difficult, because obviously, it’s a lot of change to my usual routine and process, but at the end of the day, I’m getting those results.”
Padikkal smashed six sixes in his innings on Friday, the fifth time he has hit that many in a T20 innings. But on all five previous occasions, he had faced at least 46 balls; against GT, he required only 27. Every six from Padikkal on the day looked more authoritative than the previous one.
Two of them, though, stood out. The first was when, standing just outside leg, the left-hand batter leaned into a loft with a high right elbow to go over the covers against Mohammed Siraj. “It was probably my favourite shot of the day for sure,” Padikkal said. The other was a swivel-pull, when he turned his hip to manufacture room against a short-of-a-length ball from Prasidh Krishna and launched it over fine leg.
The sixes were hit to various parts of the ground. The last of those, a slog-sweep off Rashid Khan in the tenth over, took him to a 20-ball half-century. Padikkal had set the tone, as RCB’s required rate had fallen to 8.80 halfway into the chase. It was clean, effortless hitting – a kind we haven’t really seen from Padikkal before this IPL.
But Padikkal has had enough of the comparisons.
“I think it’s time that we forget the previous version,” he said at the post-match press conference after the game. “I think the conversations around me being different have been going on for far too long. This is who I am now. So, yeah, that’s how a cricketing career progresses, right? You find things that you need to work on. You try and work on them. And I’m still young, and I’m very happy with the progress I’ve made, and I’m looking forward to what’s ahead.
“The moment I joined RCB, the set-up here, [and] the management have been really great with giving me the direction and pathway that I wanted. And DK [Dinesh Karthik], Andy [Flower], Mo [Bobat] – I can name every single one of them – the environment that they’ve created in this group in RCB has been special. And that’s really helped me.”
This season, the most drastic shift has been Padikkal’s willingness to attack balls on a length. Until this IPL, his balls-per-six ratio off length deliveries was 29.31 (19 sixes in 557 balls); this time, it has improved to 5.11 (nine in 46 balls). Earlier, his strike rate in T20s for length deliveries was 111.31; this IPL, it has nearly doubled to 221.73. Three of Padikkal’s six sixes against GT came against length deliveries, including the hit over cover off Siraj.
This IPL, Padikkal already has 208 runs in six innings, and is only 39 away from his tally from ten innings last season. But it’s the sixes that have stood out: 14 last time to 13 already this time.
India play ten T20Is across June and July, and Padikkal will hope to play his first T20I since 2021. But that’s for the future. For now, he is putting on a show, and it’s working wonders for RCB.
Stats inputs from Shiva Jayaraman and Sampath Bandarupalli
