IPL 2025 | Padikkal making the most of his homecoming

Bengaluru: This is a "homecoming" season for Devdutt Padikkal. After spending three years away from Royal Challengers Bengaluru that saw the gifted Bengalurean lose a bit of direction following an exceptional start to his IPL career, Padikkal is back enjoying the comforts of home.

The southpaw, though, hasn’t set the tongues wagging like he did in his debut season in 2020 when he amassed 473 runs in 15 games to pick up the Emerging Player award or in 2021 when he scored 411 runs in 14 games to show why many tipped him as the one for the future. But he has made a quiet statement of his own this edition.

Largely coming on as an Impact Player at the crucial one-drop position, the 24-year-old Padikkal has done a wonderful job based on the situation, totalling 230 runs in 9 games at a an impressive strike-rate of 154.36 — his best in the IPL so far. 

Whenever openers Phil Salt and Virat Kohli have provided explosive starts, Padikkal has ensured the tempo is maintained without sacrificing on his natural orthodox style. But when either of the openers have departed early, Padikkal has shown the maturity to bide this time before slowly shifting gears.

This follows the modest three years he had between 2022 to 2024. Surprisingly let go of by RCB following two fruitful seasons, Padikkal could only make 376 and 261 runs for Rajasthan Royals in the ensuing years. The constant shuffling in the batting order didn’t help his cause. Also, during that time he was laid low by a recurring intestinal bug that hampered his pre-season preparations and halted a blossoming career.

While he recovered completely by 2023 and even enjoyed a solid run for Karnataka over the last couple of domestic seasons, he endured one of his worst IPLs in 2024 where he could only muster 38 runs in 7 games for Lucknow Super Giants. Just about nothing went right for him, and when he was picked for Rs 2 crore by RCB last November, the smile returned on his face.

Now the youngster, already a Test match cricketer, is pleased all the hard work and perseverance is paying off, thanking RCB management for giving him clarity on his role.

“It does help when you have some clarity on what your role is. But at the same time, you have to go out and execute that. There's a lot of hard work that goes in. It's not just having that role, it's about going out there and working hard to really try and execute it on the ground,” Padikkal said on Friday, ahead of the clash against CSK.

“So I feel this year, it's been really helpful for me, all the work that I've put in over the last couple of months and leading into the tournament as well. The last couple of years, I didn't have too much preparation leading into IPLs and that probably had an effect on my batting as well. So it's good that this year, I got that opportunity and really worked on it as well as the road to IPL as well.”

Padikkal felt having experienced pros like Kohli and Salt makes his job that much easier. “I'm happy that I'm able to contribute. But at the same time, when you have so many experienced cricketers around you, it gives you that freedom to just go out there and have fun. To be honest, when you have people like Virat and Salt at the top and you know they have some really good power hitting coming towards the end of the innings as well, it makes your job easier because you don't have too much pressure to really go long in the innings. And it helps when you have that kind of clarity in terms of your batting order as well.”

Padikkal will be hoping 2025 is much like, or goes better, than his first two seasons with RCB.