May 3, 2024: One ball after the powerplay, the Kolkata Knight Riders are reeling at 57-5. After weeks of booing the home captain, the crowd at the Wankhede Stadium have put all of their voices behind the home side, Mumbai Indians, who have not lost to KKR here since 2012. Surely MI cannot lose from here?

Andre Russell and Ramandeep Singh are to follow, but the KKR team management decide to put in a buffer until they arrive. Their many all-rounders enable them to use a specialist batter as their Impact Player, so they bring in Manish Pandey.

Pandey has few T20 credentials to speak of. He strikes at 123 in the format. In the IPL, that drops to 121. In IPL 2023, he struck at 135. At that point, he had yet to play in 2024. Sending him out at this point seems counterintuitive, more so because what KKR need is a filler before Russell and Ramandeep. They have in their reserves Anukul Roy – who, unlike Pandey, can bowl.

KKR still back Pandey over Roy. They are fine without the extra bowler. Pandey predictably pushes the ball around to reach 20 off the first 18 balls he faces. After 13 overs, KKR are 109-5.

Hardik Pandya decides to go in for the kill. He recalls Jasprit Bumrah, who has bowled only one over until now. Pandey glances the first ball for four and biffs the third ball over Bumrah’s head for six.

Pandey eventually falls for a 31-ball 42 – but 11 of these runs have come off five balls from Bumrah. Bumrah finishes with ridiculous figures of 3.5-0-18-3 – but that includes 3-0-7-3 against batters other than Pandey.

In Pandey, KKR had found a momentary cheat code against Bumrah, the big bad boss everyone has to conquer to win a game against MI.

This is not a one-off success for Pandey against Bumrah. KKR didn’t abruptly picked Pandey after benching him for 10 matches. They did what they did because, despite having an otherwise unremarkable T20 career, Pandey has an excellent record against Bumrah – and Bumrah had three overs up his sleeve that night when they made that change.

In fact, with a 40-ball cut-off, no batter has struck at a rate better than Pandey’s 190 against Bumrah in IPL history.

Other successful batters include Faf du Plessis, Shreyas Iyer, Virat Kohli, Ambati Rayudu, KL Rahul, and Shikhar Dhawan, none of whom are big hitters – along with the usual suspects, AB de Villiers and Andre Russell.

It is important to note that Jos Buttler and Chris Gayle, who usually start off slow (when Bumrah usually starts) before accelerating. They also seldom bat in the death overs (when Bumrah returns). As a result, they have lower scoring rates. Gayle’s 77, in fact, makes very ordinary reading.

Despite the low six count, Pandey has been able to score quickly against Bumrah over the years. When he has not found a boundary, he has ensured he has managed a run.

Bumrah might have been the bowler of the season so far, or even arguably the greatest bowler in IPL history, but there is an antidote to him.

All numbers accurate until Mumbai Indians v Sunrisers Hyderabad, May 6, 2024