There was some concern for defending champion Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) about the lack of Josh Hazlewood in the first match of IPL 2026, but captain Rajat Patidar had already arranged for this. Actually, in place of Hazlewood, RCB gave a chance to Jacob Duffy in the playing 11 and he did wonders as soon as he came. This match was also Duffy’s IPL debut and he fully lived up to the occasion and took three wickets.
It is worth noting that the first match of IPL 2026 was played between RCB and SRH. This match took place on 28 March at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. In this match, RCB won the toss and decided to bowl first. This decision was completely in favor of Bengaluru. The reason for this was the excellent bowling of Jacob Duffy.
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Duffy took 3 wickets in IPL debut
In his debut match, Jacob Duffy took 3 wickets at an economy rate of 5.50 during his bowling. These wickets included the wickets of Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy. The special thing is that RCB had bought Duffy in the IPL 2026 auction for his base price of Rs 2 crore. 31-year-old Jacob Duffy is a New Zealand bowler who has taken 62 wickets so far in T20 International cricket.
Why didn’t Josh Hazlewood play?
Royal Challengers Bangalore’s star fast bowler Josh Hazlewood could not play in the first match of the season against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Hazlewood joined the team on March 26 but he is not fully fit yet, hence will not play in this match. The team management is currently keeping an eye on his fitness and it is expected that he can return to the playing eleven soon.
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In the press conference before the match, head coach Andy Flower had also made it clear that Josh Hazlewood looks fit but is not completely ready to play the match yet. Flower said, ‘Hazelwood joined the team yesterday and looks very fit. I jokingly told him that he was looking younger than before. He has taken a good break and has also worked hard to keep himself fit. We are in touch with Cricket Australia regarding his fitness. It is good for us to have him in the team but he is not ready for tomorrow’s match. Hazlewood has just returned from a long journey, so we will keep an eye on his fitness and hopefully he will be seen playing in the IPL soon.
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