Tim David is an elite six-hitter. In his 52-match IPL career, he has hit more sixes than fours: 69 to 58. So far in IPL 2026, he’s faced just 35 balls and has nine sixes. He hit eight of those in Bengaluru on Sunday in a barely believable sequence of 17 balls, which neither the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) bowlers nor anyone present at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium is likely to forget.
When David walked in, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) were going at 10.70 runs an over. Rajat Patidar was batting on another plane and that gave David time to settle in. He took four balls to get off the mark and then, on the second ball of the 17th over, the two batters pinched a bye.
The David show was about to begin.
The score at this stage was 174 for 3 after 16.2 overs. David was on 3 off 6, Patidar on 40 off 15. When Patidar next got the strike, the score had rocketed to 237 for 3 after 19, David had moved to 65 off 23 and there was a party on in the Chinnaswamy stands. In these 17 balls, David had thumped eight sixes and two fours to turn the innings around so dramatically that a score that at one stage looked in the range of 220 became 250. CSK were “shell-shocked”.
“The real turning point was Tim David in that last part, the acceleration through the last five overs,” CSK head coach Stephen Fleming said after the game. “If you look at the score, we were ahead of them up to about five overs to go [after 15, CSK were 165 for 6, RCB were 153 for 3], and then they just went like a rocket. So that’s really where the game was lost for us. Up until that point, I thought it was a relatively even contest.”
It could, however, have been very different for CSK. In the 18th over, Anshul Kamboj outsmarted David with a yorker that shattered his leg stump. Kamboj’s raucous in-the-face celebration was met with an appreciative fist bump from David. A few seconds later, the siren around the stadium sounded. Kamboj had overstepped.
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David hit the free-hit for six over long-on and then took 30 runs off Jamie Overton’s third over, the sequence of which read 6, 2, 4, 6, 6, 6. The second six of that over brought David his fifty off 21 balls. The last six was deposited over deep midwicket and onto the roof, 106 metres away. David looked at the changeroom and flexed his muscles; Virat Kohli was out of his chair, Chinnaswamy had gone wild.
“I’ve been getting in trouble during training with the boys,” David said about the six. “We have competitions to try and hit them on the roof and we’re obviously on the side pitches. So, to get one during a match out of the middle, help it up on the roof, it was good fun.”
David finished with 70 not out off 25 balls; 68 of those coming in the death overs, the most by any batter in the history of the IPL. “It doesn’t always happen that way. The skipper Rajat was absolutely smoking it and I was taking balls off him so to be able to get us to a score and obviously put a lot of pressure on the opposition, it was super, super fun.”
In 2025, David was sixth on the list of most sixes: 94 in 46 innings. He hit 14 of those in 101 balls in the IPL, where, as a finisher, his role was critical in giving RCB their first title. But behind this six-hitting madness, David explained that the behind-the-scenes work has been immense.
“It’s a lot of the prep we do over here,” David said. “[I am] very lucky to be able to work with DK [Dinesh Karthik], who’s obviously an incredibly experienced player in these conditions, and we’re working on lots of different stuff. You still keep your basics that you build your strength around and then you try and improve. I’ve been in the IPL [for] a few years now and I think that you also, with that prep and that time, you don’t put as much pressure on yourself to perform.
“I try and enjoy it on the good days and obviously there’s going to be some bad ones but that’s the game and especially when we try and play high-risk, attacking cricket.”
David’s skills have earned him the respect of his captain, who called him “one of the best finishers I’ve ever seen”, as well as his other RCB team-mates.
“He’s so confident in his technique and the areas that he wants to hit,” Devdutt Padikkal said about David. “When he goes out there, he’s very clear and he understands which bowler he needs to target and where. When you have those plans in place and that clarity is there in your head, I think it makes it a lot easier.
“I wish I could hit anywhere close to what he hits like but just looking at the technique that he has, you can obviously try and pick up things. It’s all about self-belief and that confidence that he has to go from ball one. If you can emulate that confidence, I think it’ll translate to everyone in the team as well.”
It’s not been the easiest four months and a bit for David. He was ruled out of the Big Bash League with a hamstring injury in late December. While he recovered in time for the 2026 T20 World Cup, he only managed 0 and 6 in the two innings he batted at No. 4 as Australia crashed out in the group stage.
But if anyone felt that David was coming into the IPL undercooked, there is a ball lodged on the roof of Chinnaswamy which might say otherwise.
