The first six games of IPL 2026 have produced an unexpected trend: bowlers are winning Player of the Match awards. In a tournament where the attention almost always falls on batters smashing 200-plus totals, 3 of the first 6 match awards have gone to pace bowlers. Nobody was predicting this. Everyone was waiting for Anrich Nortje, Mayank Yadav, Lockie Ferguson and Umran Malik to clock 150 kph and dismantle stumps. Instead, the story of the opening week has been something far more subtle: slower balls. Specifically, the kind that looks identical to the stock delivery until it is far too late.
Duffy's Debut
So, Jacob Duffy really started it, the New Zealand fast bowler made his IPL debut for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the season opener against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Chinnaswamy on March 28 and produced stunning figures of 3 for 22 in 4 overs at an economy of 5.50 in a match where over 400 runs were scored across both innings. In a game of that scale, those numbers are just truly impressive. Duffy bowls between 135 and 142 kph typically, but his key deliveries during the match were clocked around 132.5 kph, slower than his stock ball and almost impossible to pick. After being hit for a six in his first over, the Kiwi fast bowler immediately adjusted his length, stopped pitching up and began targeting the hard lengths that exploited the spongy Chinnaswamy surface. Abhishek Sharma was hurried by a short ball and top-edged behind. Travis Head was hit in the body on a back-of-a-length delivery and caught at deep square leg. Nitish Kumar Reddy miscued a short-of-good-length ball that climbed sharply and was caught at short midwicket. Three different variations, three wickets, and one consistent theme: pace off the ball at hard lengths. RCB won their season opener because of Duffy. That is not an overstatement.
Ngidi's Ball Of The Tournament
Match 5 between Delhi Capitals and Lucknow Super Giants at the Ekana Stadium produced an even more striking example. Lungi Ngidi finished with 3 for 27 in 3.4 overs as DC won the match and walked away with the Player of the Match award, but the number that does not show in the scorecard is 112.3. That was the speed of the delivery that clean bowled Nicholas Pooran in the 9th over.
Ngidi came around the wicket, released a full-length slower ball at 112.3 kph, shaped slightly in the air, dipped late, and Pooran, who had been dismissed for just 8 off 8 balls, had no answer. It was the kind of delivery that makes experienced T20 batters look completely clueless. Then in his final over, the South African fast bowler took 2 wickets in 2 balls, the first a wide yorker-length slower ball that forced a miscue from the tailender; his own description of it as his "favourite ball of the night" suggests he knew exactly what he was doing. What makes Ngidi's slower deliveries so difficult to pick is the disguise. He maintains the same shoulder rotation and arm speed as his 140-plus kph deliveries. There is no visual cue. The batter reads pace, commits, and the ball arrives nearly 30 kph slower. By then, it is too late.
Furthermore, former English star Kevin Pietersen, who was Delhi Capitals' mentor last season before parting ways with the franchise, summed it up simply on social media after Ngidi's performance: "Batters get you championships, and bowlers win you championships." On the early evidence of IPL 2026, he is not wrong.