Why Rajat Patidar Is the Most Dangerous Middle-Overs Batter in IPL 2026

There have been 1,370 sixes hit in IPL 2026 — already a record for a single season, 76 more than last year and 110 more than the season before, with three matches still to be played. As sixes become more commonplace, they become proportionally less remarkable. You need to do something genuinely spectacular to hit a truly memorable one these days.

When Even Kohli Goes Slack-Jawed

And you need to do something several levels above spectacular to make Virat Kohli cover his mouth with his hand and go slack-jawed.

Rajat Patidar hit a shot like that on Tuesday night in Dharamsala. It came off a good-length delivery from Kagiso Rabada — fifth-stump line, the kind of ball a quality batter might meet on top of the bounce and punch through the covers. Patidar transferred his weight onto his back foot, opened his hips, and — barely seeming to move — drove the ball. Not through the covers. Over them. Bat following all the way over his left shoulder, ball soaring over the boundary cushions, the digital hoardings, the camerapersons’ moat, and approximately ten rows of spectators before disappearing into the crowd.

The shot — the sixth six of his innings — took him to 61 off 22 balls. It was only the beginning.

A Night Unlike His Others: Scratchy Start, Incandescent Finish

Dharamsala had prepared a crack-ridden, two-paced pitch for Qualifier 1. Bowlers were finding the ball skidding through from length on some occasions and gripping and kicking sharply on others. After a 76-run powerplay, Royal Challengers Bengaluru had slowed dramatically — scoring just 52 for 2 from overs 7 to 13. Patidar was at the crease for much of that period, looking quite unlike himself.

Then came the 14th over. GT offered two chances. A skied leading edge, and then a straightforward chance at deep square leg from a pull that didn’t come off the middle — put down by Rabada. By the middle of the 15th over, Patidar had muscled his way to 22 off 14 balls without striking anything cleanly.

What happened next was the kind of sequence that only a handful of batters in the world are capable of producing.

71 runs off 19 balls. He went from scratchy accumulation to an assault that lit up the Himalayan night sky.

He hit sixes in every direction against every kind of bowling off every length. A good-length ball from Rashid Khan disappeared over extra cover. A low full-toss from Mohammed Siraj was carved one-handed over backward point. A near-yorker from Prasidh Krishna — the kind of delivery that usually pins batters to the crease — was shovelled straight back down the ground off the back foot with a bottom-handed whip that defied the geometry of the delivery.

By the time he was done, Patidar had made the quickest of the 25 scores of 90-plus produced in IPL 2026 — 93 not out off 33 balls at a strike rate of 281.81. During his innings, RCB’s other batters and extras combined for 68 runs off 37 balls. He was operating at a different level to everyone else on the field.

The Broader Picture: A Transcendent Season

Tuesday night was the highest individual point of what has been a genuinely exceptional season from Patidar — one that has redefined the bar for middle-order batting in the IPL.

Among the 50 batters to have scored at least 100 runs in the middle overs this season, only three have struck faster than Patidar’s 206.66 in that phase — Finn Allen, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, and Ryan Rickelton. All three are openers.

The next-best non-opener, Ishan Kishan, has struck at 185.50 in the middle overs. In runs-per-over terms, Patidar has been scoring at more than a run per over quicker than the nearest non-opener equivalent. That gap is not marginal — it represents a structural advantage that RCB have built their entire batting philosophy around.

The Powerplay Basher’s Mentality: What Makes Patidar Different

From watching Patidar bat, and listening to how he describes his innings, a clear picture emerges. He brings a powerplay batter’s mentality to the middle overs — the same combination of supreme confidence in his methods, supreme indifference to risk, and supreme ball-striking ability that characterises the most dangerous openers in the game, applied to a phase of cricket that typically demands greater caution.

Generally, Patidar tends toward one of two modes: total devastation, or early dismissal. It is rare for him to spend extended time at the crease struggling for fluency. Tuesday was the exception — and even then, what followed demonstrated why those scratchy phases rarely define his innings.

He is particularly renowned for dismantling spin. It has become so well-known that GT took Rashid Khan out of the attack the moment Patidar came to the crease on Tuesday — even though the world’s best T20 spinner had figures of 0 for 8 in two overs at that point. A bowler at the peak of his powers, removed from the equation simply because of who was at the crease.

When GT eventually brought Rashid back in the 16th over, Patidar confirmed their fears immediately — two sixes in the over.

And when the best fast bowler available is Rabada in the best rhythm of his IPL career — and he bowls a perfectly good delivery, fifth stump, good length — and the ball still clears the stands by ten rows of seats, there is very little left in the tactical armoury.

On nights like Tuesday, Patidar makes the opposition look not merely outplayed, but helpless. Their best plans are not countered — they are rendered irrelevant.

Read More: How Royal Challengers Bengaluru Reinvented Themselves Into Champions

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