At the moment, things are very skewed in batter's favour in IPL: SRH's James Franklin
Royal Challengers Bengaluru's bowlers delivered a rare low-scoring spectacle, bowling out Delhi Capitals for 75. Sunrisers Hyderabad's assistant coach James Franklin expressed surprise at the anomaly, noting the current IPL's heavy batting favouritism. He also detailed Abhishek Sharma's meticulous preparation and denied over-reliance on SRH's top order.
MUMBAI: For a tournament which is used to 200-plus totals being scored and chased with monotonous regularity, what happened on Monday night at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi is certainly a rarity, an aberration. Breathing fire, Royal Challengers Bengaluru pacers Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar reduced a hapless Delhi Capitals to eight for six by just the fourth over. DC were eventually bowled out for 75, as RCB won by nine wickets.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW! Amongst those left bewildered at the way the match panned out in an otherwise batter-friendly IPL 2026, Sunrisers Hyderabad's assistant coach James Franklin, whose team, riding on its bevy of big-hitters, chased down 229 against Rajasthan Royals with ridiculous ease.
“I didn't actually watch last night's game; I caught up with it on a scorecard (later). I couldn't really quite believe what I saw. At the moment, in IPL particularly, we're getting so used to these 200 plus scores, so to see a scorecard totally opposite end of the spectrum was quite amazing,” Franklin said in the pre-match press conference, ahead of his side's crucial match against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday.
The former New Zealand left-arm pacer, who once played for MI in the IPL, agreed with the thought that at the moment, the balance in the IPL is heavily loaded in favour of the batters. “It'll be interesting to see how it moves going forward; not just through this tournament, but potentially future editions of IPL — whether you start to get it a little bit more balanced back towards the bowling side of it. It does feel at the moment, things are very skewed in the batter's favour.