Krunal Pandya sweep shot: The six months of work behind his 73 against Mumbai Indians

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4 min readUpdated: May 11, 2026 06:51 PM IST

Krunal Pandya Sweep shot Krunal Pandya of Royal Challengers Bengaluru plays a shot during Match 54 of the TATA Indian Premier League 2026 between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Mumbai Indians at Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium, Raipur, India, on May 10, 2026. (CREIMAS)

Jitendra Singh, Krunal Pandya‘s childhood coach, watched his player go down on one knee against Will Jacks in the ninth over on Sunday and pick up a boundary through deep square leg. He had seen that shot hundreds of times in the nets. He had built it, piece by piece, over six months.

“Grip, head, and a lot of mechanics, alignment, and many other things,” Singh said. “It was not just one thing. Everything was sequenced into one process.”

That process was on display at Raipur, where Pandya’s 73 off 46 balls played a central role in RCB’s two-wicket win over Mumbai Indians. The innings was built, largely, on one shot.

The sweep is not a new weapon for Pandya. But at 35, with specific work put into its mechanics before this IPL season, it has become something more deliberate — a way to take control of a middle-overs innings without needing to manufacture power from scratch each time.

Nothing but respect! 🫡👏

Battling through pain & cramps, #KrunalPandya‘s sensational innings has definitely won a lot of hearts. ❤️🙌#TATAIPL Revenge Week 2026 ➡️ #RCBvMI | LIVE NOW 👉https://t.co/y41wRLoDHD pic.twitter.com/WTlyrU7llg

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) May 10, 2026

“We had worked for the last six months on this aspect of his batting,” Singh said. “Especially a week to 10 days before he left for this season. We worked at the Reliance IPCL ground and at the Kotambi stadium.”

What they worked on was the head. “We tried to make sure his head stays a little more over the ball when he is about to play the sweep shot,” Singh said. “So that is helping him to generate more power and get into a better position to execute the shots.” He was specific about what that meant in practice.

“Grip, head position, how the hand has to move — technical aspects were all there. We worked on how the positioning of the head has to be so he can generate more power. Everything was sequenced into one process and that is helping him get into a better position to execute.”

The head is everything on the sweep. Get across early, go down with intent, read the length quickly — and the lbw risk dissolves. The hands free up. The shot cleans itself. Part of why it keeps working is the strong bottom hand behind it — even a mistimed sweep often finds a gap or clears an infielder, which keeps the bowler second-guessing.

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On Sunday, Pandya used it to good effect against Jacks. Against Delhi Capitals earlier in IPL 2025, he did the same against Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel — sometimes getting into position early to attack, sometimes waiting a fraction longer to find the timing. The 2016 innings against Delhi Daredevils in Visakhapatnam showed a more aggressive version: reverse sweeps, slog sweeps over midwicket, even mistimed shots still finding gaps because of the intent behind them. That innings had an edge to it — less about control, more about domination. What has changed since is the precision underneath the power.

#KrunalPandya wastes no time 🔥

Wickets falling for #RCB, but their batters continue to counterattack.#TATAIPL Revenge Week 2026 ➡️ #RCBvMI | LIVE NOW 👉https://t.co/y41wRLoDHD pic.twitter.com/yWfw5Qs5q9

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) May 10, 2026

The pattern holds across all three. Spinners brought on to tighten the middle overs, Pandya using the sweep to take back the initiative. Once it starts working, it forces captains to push boundary riders deeper and wider. That opens space straight and through the covers. Bowling plans shift. The game changes shape.

Much of Pandya’s IPL career has been spent in brief cameos — a consequence of playing in teams built around dominant top orders. These innings tell a different story. When he gets time in the middle, he knows how to build, how to rotate, how to keep the innings moving without forcing. On Sunday he did exactly that — singles when boundaries were hard to come by, ensuring the asking rate never climbed away from RCB.

Singh put it simply: “If you look at his overall game, he is now generating more power compared to earlier.” Six months of work. Head over the ball. Everything sequenced into one process.

Based in Mumbai, Shankar Narayan has over five years of experience and his reporting has ranged from the Ranji Trophy to ICC World Cups, and he writes extensively on women’s cricket. ... Read More

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