IPL 2026 RCB vs SRH | Duffy takes a leaf out of Hazlewood’s playbook

Jacob Duffy’s fantastic show in the IPL 2026 opener greatly softened the blow dealt by the absence of lead Royal Challengers Bengaluru pacer Josh Hazlewood.

The New Zealand pacer made a memorable IPL debut, honing in on short of length to tie up the Sunrisers Hyderabad batters at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Saturday. Duffy provided the perfect template on how to operate, a ready-made framework that SRH failed to replicate.

Also Read: IPL 2026 RCB vs SRH highlights

The tall speedster from Lumsden spoke about learning to crack the pitch puzzle from senior pro Hazlewood. “I am just keeping the big fellow’s (Hazlewood’s) seat warm. I wanted to bowl the hard lengths. We talked about lengths, what works here, and built on what Hazlewood did,” Duffy said to the host broadcaster after RCB cruised to a six-wicket victory.

Duffy’s exploits were followed by explosive knocks from Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal and Rajat Patidar in the RCB chase.

Skipper Patidar was all praise for Kohli and Padikkal. “Padikkal was aggressive from ball one. I really enjoyed his batting,” Patidar said.

Even at 37, Kohli is at his peak, Patidar explained. “I feel like Virat is at his peak. He is my idol. He has that same energy, eagerness to perform, to dominate the game. I am learning a lot of things by watching him in the nets,” Patidar said.

SRH head coach Daniel Vettori stated that his bowlers just could not execute on the night.

“We learned a lot from how RCB bowled — what was effective and what was not. We obviously discussed it, but we weren’t able to implement that. We missed our lengths too much. Duffy in particular showed the length to bowl on that surface,” Vettori said.