IPL 2026: ‘There’s definitely something off’ – Fans react as Krunal Pandya bowls surprise bouncer to his brother Hardik

Hardik Pandya and Krunal Pandya. (Photo Source: Jio Hotstar)

The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 dished out a star-studded encounter on April 12 at the Wankhede Stadium as two heavyweights – Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bengaluru – renewed their rivalry in the season.

The fixture lived up to its billing as 240 played 222, with RCB emerging victorious by 18 runs in a high-scoring contest, catching up with MI’s historically dominant head-to-head record against them.

There was no dearth of glitzy matchups as some of cricket’s most prominent names were in action in tandem, with Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah on one side and Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar and Bhuvneshwar Kumar on the other.

However, it was the battle of brothers that headlined the contest, emerging as the biggest talking point from the night. The sibling rivalry peaked when RCB all-rounder Krunal Pandya delivered a sharp, quick bouncer to MI skipper Hardik, which the latter evaded before the duo had an intense exchange of stares.

Soon afterwards, Krunal was seen celebrating Hardik’s wicket animatedly as he perished to Jacob Duffy in the 15th over after scoring a 22-ball 40 with six fours and a six. Earlier, Hardik conceded 39 runs in his four overs, managing the wicket of Kohli. As for his elder brother Krunal, the left-arm spinner was not required with the bat, while he returned impressive figures of 1 for 26 in his four overs, dismissing Suryakumar Yadav.

Apart from the surprise bouncer, Krunal’s pace variations, trajectory changes, altered release points, and a bagful of variations in addition to his traditional left-arm spin tested Mumbai Indians aplenty in the middle-overs, keeping them on the backfoot in the tall chase of 241 despite Sherfane Rutherford’s counterattacking 31-ball 71 studded with nine sixes.

Here’s how X reacted on Krunal’s surprise bouncer to Hardik:

Meanwhile, reflecting on his bowling performance after RCB’s win, Krunal said that developing variations has become a necessity for bowlers in the Impact Player era, as the rule has elongated batting line-ups and instilled a high degree of fearlessness in batters.

“I have never shied away from trying different and new things. With the Impact Player rule, previously, without an impact player, you had No. 6 and No. 7 as all-rounders. Batsmanship was quite different, but now, having eight pure batters plus the skill set. You see young boys like Mukul (Choudhary), Vaibhav (Suryavanshi), so many of them are just coming and hitting from ball one consistently,” he said.

“As a bowler, I always want to be one step ahead with the skill set as well as with the mental battle. It (variation) has just purely come from that. Whether it is me bending my knee and bowling that ball or a bouncer.

“I am glad that it is coming out well and hope that in this format, there are finger spinners who will survive and who can take something out of it and do well in this format. Because, for a finger spinner with flat tracks, eight batters, it has become very difficult. I am glad that I have been able to contribute in a nice way,” he added.

Krunal also touched upon his bouncer variation, a type of delivery spinners are not known to deliver.

“I am someone who follows my gut. I don’t pre-plan that I want to bowl a fourth or fifth, or sixth ball a bouncer. There are days when I will bowl two bouncers back-to-back, and suddenly I will bowl the first ball and the sixth ball. So, there are no such plans, but it is more sort of a gut feeling when to bowl which ball, and I just commit 100 per cent to that,” he said.

“I don’t practise that much, where I go and practise bowling bouncers. It is just that I actually bowl in the game. But yeah, I have been bowling consistently for a long period of time,” Krunal concluded.

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