Anshul Kamboj Excels in IPL 2026 Death Overs

‘Anshul Kamboj’s day was bad today. He is already disappointed about this and is eager to make an excellent comeback.’ 

This was said by Chennai Super Kings (Chennai) captain Ruturaj Gaikwad a few minutes after the match against Delhi Capitals ended. On that day, Kamboj spent 49 runs in his four overs without taking any wickets.

In IPL 2026, Kamboj has been consistently stopping right-handed batsmen by bowling from an ‘around the wicket’ angle, but on Tuesday, Ashutosh Sharma showed the way to counter this fast bowler by hitting the ball with a jump towards the off-stump, bending low, and hitting a full-length ball. Can Kamboj find a solution to this as well?

With 19 wickets in 11 matches, he is second in the Purple Cap (most wickets) list, behind Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Of these, 10 wickets have come between overs 15 and 20. No one has more wickets than Kamboj in this phase. In only his third IPL season, Kamboj is stepping forward to fulfill the very difficult responsibility shouldered by experienced bowlers like Bhuvneshwar, Jasprit Bumrah, and Jofra Archer.

When Chennai plays or practices, most of the attention is usually on MS Dhoni, but in the pre-season, Kamboj drew the attention of the star-studded team. Almost all the team’s support staff, including head coach Stephen Fleming, bowling coach Eric Simons, and assistant bowling coach Sriram, were surprised to see Kamboj consistently bowling excellent ‘wide yorkers’ from around the wicket.

Kamboj started his career as a swing bowler in favorable conditions for Haryana, and he primarily bowled with the new ball for his state, even in T20 cricket. In IPL 2025, Chennai also used him as a new ball bowler. According to ESPNcricinfo statistics, 126 of the 129 balls he bowled were in the powerplay.

Before IPL 2026, Kamboj had bowled only six balls from around the wicket in this league. But in this season alone, he has bowled 75 balls from that angle, all of which have been bowled between overs 15 and 20. 

Along with this, he has emerged as the main face of this new strategy against right-handed batsmen. No one expected such a transformation, nor such excellent performance. Kamboj is also one of the main reasons why Chennai, considered to have a weak bowling attack, has maintained the second-best economy rate (9.02) in IPL 2026.

Simons said at a press conference in Delhi, ‘We have talked a lot as a bowling unit about the batting fluctuations we are seeing now. One thing we decided to let go of was overemphasizing too many different strategies. We wanted the bowlers to be completely clear about what they wanted to do when they stepped onto the field and feel safe doing it. So, even if we bowl a good ball and it gets hit for a six, it's still a good ball, and it might be the right ball to bowl next time.’

Simons also said that ‘Project Kamboj’ started from Chennai’s net practice last season and took shape in the recent domestic season. In the 2025-26 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Kamboj took 21 wickets while taking responsibility for both the opening and death overs, leading his team to the final. Only Sushant Mishra (22) of Jharkhand and Ashok Sharma (22) of Rajasthan took more wickets than Kamboj.

Simons added, ‘The Anshul you are seeing today is not just the result of this season... it started last year. The things we worked on, he went to the domestic season and worked on different angles and methods of bowling on the crease, and especially on making his yorker more accurate.’

‘We introduced the around-the-wicket bowling style, which is no longer a secret. He has taken wickets and has been successful in containing the run rate, but the main thing is his professionalism, his training methods, and his understanding of the game. In modern cricket, a bowler must be clear about what they want to do, and he is very clear about his strategies and field settings.’

At one time, there was a great death bowler in the world who wore jersey number 47 for Chennai, who used to make batsmen helpless with his ‘dipping yorkers’. Now they have an emerging bowler wearing jersey number 47, who is performing excellently in the death overs, carrying the burden of an inexperienced bowling attack.