You always know what you're going to get with Krunal Pandya. He's played nine full seasons of the IPL, and his economy rate each time has been there or thereabouts, ranging from a best of 6.82 in 2017 to a worst of 7.98 in 2021.
Ravindra Jadeja has finished three full IPL seasons with eight-plus economy rates (not counting his debut season when he only bowled 2.1 overs). Axar Patel has done this three times too. Krunal, never.
This isn't to say that Krunal is better or more consistent than those two. But it says something about him that he has comparable overall numbers in the IPL to two of international cricket's most respected left-arm spinners, and that he's done a difficult and sometimes underappreciated job year after year.
Even so, you wondered what exactly Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), his newest employers, were thinking when they gave Krunal the ball at the start of the fifth over on Saturday night, with Sunil Narine on strike. Narine was enduring one of his rare slow starts in the powerplay, and if you'd asked him which opposition bowler he'd want to face at that moment, he'd quite likely have pointed to Krunal and said, "I'll have some left-arm spin, please."
The first ball of this match-up, slogged with the turn over the wide long-on boundary, may have made you question RCB's wisdom again. And then, when Ajinkya Rahane swept and chipped Krunal for back-to-back fours to end that over, you may have asked the same question again, with a wider ambit this time, taking in not just this moment in this match, but RCB's season in its about-to-enfold entirety.
On the eve of this IPL 2025 season-opener against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), RCB head coach Andy Flower had been asked whether he felt his squad was lacking in the spin department. It was somewhat telling that Flower began his answer with these words: "It's a really good and apt question to ask."
Flower then backed Krunal - they had worked together at Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) - emphatically to lead RCB's spin attack through the season.
"Krunal was a significant part of our targeted players in the auction. He's a smart and courageous cricketer and he's got leadership experience as well. So having his nous, he's a streetwise operator and he's obviously got class as a left-arm spinner, let alone as an allrounder. That is comforting to have in our group and leading the way in the spin department."
By the time Krunal returned to the attack, RCB needed him to show all the qualities Flower had spoken of. Narine had just departed, but another left-hand batter, Venkatesh Iyer, had replaced him, and KKR were 107 for 2 in ten overs.
Now, bear in mind that there's always a certain messiness to the mechanisms of cause and effect in T20s. There are many, many factors behind why a bowler concedes 15 in a wicketless first over and comes back to pick up 3 for 14 in his next three, and one of those factors is, well, randomness. Things just happen sometimes, you know?
You could certainly say that about the ball that began the transformation in Krunal's fortunes: Rahane c Rasikh Salam b Krunal 56. A ball that wasn't quite there to be pulled, but one the batter had to try and pull anyway, because this is T20 and you can't keep waiting for bad balls, and it's always a bigger risk outside the powerplay with all those fielders on the boundary.
But if it was a random dismissal, it was also a very Krunal kind of random dismissal. The ball was fired in from left-arm around to finish at an awkward spot for the batter, at around bail height or just above on leg stump, tucking him up for room. At 98.4kph, it was very much at the quicker end of the IPL spinners' pace spectrum, so the batter didn't just have a paucity of room to deal with but a paucity of time as well. Add all that up, and you get a ball that's hard to get more than a single off - almost always a win for the bowler in this format - and hard to hit for four or six without taking a significant risk.
This is the crux of Krunal's art. It often involves doing predictable things, which could be - depending on the type of batter he's bowling to, the conditions, and the field setting - keeping the stumps in play, or bowling outside a batter's hitting arc, or finding a way to get the batter off strike. But because he knows that the batter knows what's coming, Krunal has also developed a genius for throwing in the unexpected. He routinely delivers the ball from well behind the crease, for example, and in this match, he delivered a nasty surprise bouncer to the bareheaded Iyer. It was called wide - it qualified both on line and height - but Krunal had made his point, and Iyer immediately called for a helmet.
Next ball, Krunal was back to bowling what you might call his stock ball. It was quick - this one clocked 101.9kph - delivered from around the wicket, and angled towards the top of the right-hand batter's leg stump or the left-hand batter's off stump, with the chance of a little bit of turn to make things unpredictable. Given that pace, line and length, it's a hard ball to step out to, a risky ball to sweep, and an unnatural ball to play attacking shots against with either a vertical or horizontal bat.
Iyer went right back in his crease, and tried to manufacture a whip through the leg side, with his bat somewhere between vertical and horizontal. All he managed was an inside edge into the stumps.
"You have to go with the flow, how cricket is evolving, right?" Player-of-the-Match Krunal said at the post-match presentation, when asked about the pace he was bowling at. "The skillset [that] batters have these days, the ability to hit sixes or hit good shots consistently - so you also have to make sure [of] how can you up your game, you know? So that was one of the reasons, where I wanted to bowl quick, I wanted to give [batters] less time.
"And once again, my change of pace […] bowling slow also comes in handy when I use that quick ball."
Krunal's last ball of the day was another of these quick balls - 103kph - and Rinku Singh, going for a pull that couldn't really be a pull, because of the diagonal angle of his bat, missed entirely, the ball straightening ever so slightly past the inside edge to hit the top of off stump. The transformation from 1-0-15-0 to 4-0-29-3 was complete.
"Sometimes when you play in [front of] so much of crowd, you have to narrow down your focus, right?" Krunal said, when asked about the comeback. "So again, when I came in [for my] second over, I made a very conscious effort to just narrow down my focus where I wanted to bowl, and if I [had] to get hit, I'll get hit on a good ball. So that was the thought process, and glad that I was able to deliver."
Apart from everything else that goes into his bowling, what sets Krunal apart is his ability to keep the percentages in his favour. It's essential if you have to bowl spin in the IPL and come away without suffering serious punishment. And he's managed to do this time and again on the toughest proving grounds. He has an economy rate of 6.98 at the Wankhede Stadium - his primary home ground from 2016 to 2021 - and if that ground is notoriously unforgiving for spinners, the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, his new home ground, can be even more unforgiving, and he's gone at 6.58 there, over seven games.
Krunal has always been a survivor, and it was this skill, more than any other, that RCB hoped to tap into when they signed him up. No matter what comes next, they have got the start they wanted from this relationship.