India, April 27 -- For a week now, the IPL has felt like a batting montage on loop - mammoth totals, clean hits, records set, records broken, bowlers reduced to supporting cast. On a Monday evening against the Delhi Capitals, pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood took things personally, flipped the script and handed Royal Challengers Bengaluru a comfortable nine-wicket win.

For six overs, the Feroz Shah Kotla stopped behaving like a T20 venue. It played tricks, it whispered and the ball talked. You could have mistaken it for an early-morning session at an English venue, the kind where bowlers don't just participate, they dictate proceedings.

RCB's new-ball pair didn't just exploit the conditions, they thrived in them. Swing in the...