Tim David’s monstrous hits in the death overs of Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s innings against the Chennai Super Kings on Monday in the 2026 Indian Premier League (IPL) set up the defending champions’ big win and in the process, he ended up setting a new record in the tournament. David walked in to bat in the 15th over of the innings with the fall of Devdutt Padikkal and 25 deliveries he was unbeaten on a whopping 70 runs with three fours and as many as eight sixes. According to ESPNCricinfo, this is only the second time in T20s that a batter has scored as many runs after coming in to bat in the 15th over, where fall-of-wickets overs data is available. The other batter was Daniel Sams who had scored 71 against Sussex in 2022. David has also set a new record for most runs scored by a batter in the death overs (Overs 17-20) of an innings in an IPL match. The Australian scored 68 of his 70 runs in this period. His knock, coupled with captain Rajat Patidar’s unbeaten 48 in 19 balls and Padikkal’s 50 in 29, helped RCB set up a mammoth score of 250 for the loss of just three wickets. While Sarfaraz Khan’s 50 off 25 balls took CSK to a score of 207, the five-time champions never really looked set to pose a serious challenge for the target. RCB thus recorded a second consecutive win to start off the season, having chased down a target of 202 with ease to beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by six wickets in the opening match this year. CSK, meanwhile, are in deep trouble already. This was their third match of the season and third defeat in a row. Worryingly for them, as was the case in the game against RCB, CSK looked well behind their opponent of the day on each of their previous two matches as well.
Tim David’s whirlwind knock sets new death-over benchmark in IPL
