IPL Head to Head

How these numbers work

Every ball between the two

The figures come from ball-by-ball records, counted one delivery at a time: 1,243 IPL matches from 18 Apr 2008 to 31 May 2026. A ball faced does not include wides. Runs are runs off the bat. A dismissal counts only when it is the bowler's wicket: caught, bowled, lbw, stumped or hit wicket. Run-outs are left out, because the bowler did not take them.

Compared with what their records predict

A raw count says little on its own. Six dismissals in 50 balls is remarkable; six in 500 is ordinary. So next to every contest we show what the two players would be expected to produce in the same number of balls, built from the batter's record against every other bowler and the bowler's record against every other batter. The contest itself is left out of both, or a long rivalry would partly predict itself.

When a verdict is worth writing

Small samples swing a lot, so a verdict has to earn its place. We measured how much a scoring rate in one set of meetings carries into the next, and weigh each contest against the expectation accordingly: in the IPL, about 85 balls between two players count as much as everything their records say. Below half of that, we say there are too few balls to call it.

Dismissals deserve extra care. Once both records are known, the number of times one bowler gets one batter out is mostly chance: a bowler who removed a batter often in one set of matches was no more likely to do it in the next. So we only call a dismissal count unusual when chance alone would produce it less than 1 time in 100. Many famous "bunnies" do not pass that test.

Approximate, and honest about it

These figures cover the matches in our records. Some older and smaller matches are missing, and totals can differ slightly from official records, so treat them as a close picture of the contest rather than the official book. Each format stands alone: a Test record and an IPL record are different contests, which is why the page asks for the format first.