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Dinesh Karthik has lavished heavy praise on Krunal Pandya with the Royal Challengers Bengaluru all-rounder playing an integral part in his team's excellent form in the IPL 2026 campaign. As RCB take on Delhi Capitals in their fixture at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on April 27, Karthik said Krunal is a player who will live long in the memory.

Krunal has been one of the standout performers for RCB in the last two seasons. His all-round ability has helped him provide his team with consistency, especially under pressure, however, this year his new bowling technique has taken him by storm.

Karthik elaborated further on Krunal's journey as a bowler and how his short-pitched deliveries have changed the view on finger spin in T20 cricket as he stated such deliveries would not have been possible a few years ago.

Karthik said:

"Krunal Pandya is a player that this game is going to remember for a long time. He's doing something that has not been done before, pushing the boundaries of what finger-spinner means. He's bowling deliveries that people really couldn't fathom a few years ago and he's becoming a master at it and he's using it very cleverly when the situation demands and he's using that as a strength of his to put pressure back on the person that he's bowling against."

He added:

"It's actually quite interesting to see how he goes about it mentally as well. He's not someone who's just doing it because it looks cool. He knows that given the moment when he does want to use it, it does create a doubt in the batter and a lot of the times delivers the result that he wants out of that ball."

His method has begun a new trend already as Mitchell Santner adopted a short ball to Shivam Dube when MI took on CSK in Wankhede stadium.

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Speaking after the RCB vs MI victory, Krunal elaborated on the idea behind bowling a new ball. He indicated that the current nature of the game has made things quite difficult for bowlers, particularly finger spinners.

Krunal 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 a number six all-rounder, a number seven all-rounder. Batsmanship was quite different, but now having 8 pure batters, plus the skill set. You see the young boys like Mukul, Vaibhav, so many of them are just coming and hitting from ball one consistently."

The RCB all-rounder added:

"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. It has just purely come from that. Whether it is me bending my knee and bowling that ball or a bouncer. I am glad that it is coming out well and hope that in this format, there are finger spinners who will survive and who can take something out of it. And do well in this format. Because for finger spinner with having flat tracks has 8 batters, it has become very difficult. So yeah, I am glad that I have been able to contribute in a nice way."

Krunal added that instinct plays a bigger role than pre-meditation for him.

Krunal concluded:

“I am someone who follows my gut. I don’t pre-plan that I want to bowl a 4th or 5th or 6th ball bouncer. There are days where I will bowl two bouncers back-to-back, and suddenly I will bowl first ball and a 6th ball. So there are no such plans that I want to bowl. But yeah, it is more sort of a gut feeling when to bowl which ball, and I just commit 100% to that."

RCB will now look to make it three wins in a row as they face Delhi Capitals.