I have never shied away from trying new things – Krunal Pandya
Krunal Pandya’s variations have recently left batters in serious trouble. What started with a bouncer against Venkatesh Iyer in IPL 2025 has now transformed into a repertoire of varied deliveries that KP picks as he wishes. In the post-match press conference after the MI vs RCB match, Pandya opened up about how he decides to change deliveries and the overall shift in his body stance that makes it more intriguing.
Explaining how the Impact Player rule changes the horizon, Pandya said, “I have never shied away from trying different and new things. Because if you see, with the impact player rule, previously without an impact player, you had No. 6 allrounder or No. 7 allrounder. Batsmanship was quite different.”
He further added, “But now, having eight pure batters and the skill set [they have], you see young boys like Mukul [Choudhary] and Vaibhav [Sooryavanshi], so many of them are just coming and hitting from ball one consistently. So again, as a bowler, I always want to be one step ahead with the skill set as well as with the mental battle as well.”
Explaining the wily shifts in his overall stance, Pandya added, “Whether it's me bending my knee and bowling a bouncer, I'm glad that it is coming out well and hope that in this format, there are fingerspinners who will survive and who can take something out of it and do well in this format. Because for fingerspinners, with flat tracks and eight batters, it has become very difficult."
Highlighting if he has his plans sorted ahead of a bouncer, KP added, “I don't pre-plan that I want to bowl a fourth- or a fifth- or a sixth-ball bouncer. There are days where I'll bowl two bouncers back-to-back and suddenly I'll bowl first ball and a sixth ball. So there are no such plans. But yeah, it's more sort of a gut feeling when to bowl which ball and I just commit 100% to that.”
He concluded by saying, “I've been able to get batsmen out with spin and deceiving [them] in the flight. I don't practise that much where I go and bowl bouncers. It is just I bowl [them] in the game."
