There have been 1370 sixes hit in IPL 2026. It's already a record for an IPL season - 76 more than last season, and 110 more than the season before that - and three matches are still to go.
As sixes become more commonplace, it's natural that they become less remarkable. You really need to do something spectacular to hit a truly memorable six these days. And you need to do something a couple of levels above spectacular to make Virat Kohli go slack-jawed, cover his mouth with his hand, and deny viewers the chance to lip-read his pithy observations.
Rajat Patidar hit a shot like that on Tuesday night. You've probably already watched it. It came off a good-length ball from Kagiso Rabada, fifth-stumpish, the kind of ball that a good batter might be able to meet on top of the bounce and punch through the covers. The shot Patidar played, while barely seeming to move barring a transfer of weight onto his back foot and an opening up of his hips, could be described as a punch, except he didn't hit it through the covers. He hit it over the covers, bat following through all the way over left shoulder so it was more full-fledged drive than punch. The ball soared and soared, clearing the boundary cushions, the digital ad hoardings, the camerapersons' moat, and some ten rows of spectator seating before disappearing into the crowd.
Did the rarefied, high-altitude air of Dharamsala make the shot travel farther than it might have elsewhere? Sure. Did it matter? Hell, no. Just watch it again. Watch the square-on replay. Marvel at Patidar's balance as he arches backwards, rising onto the tips of his toes. Marvel at the way his luxuriant and artfully tinted mane, spilling out of his golden helmet, shimmies as bat meets ball. It's as if Patidar has cultivated this hairstyle just for this moment.
This shot, the sixth six of Patidar's innings, took him to 61 off 22 balls - a remarkable score in any context, and particularly so on this day.
Generally, Patidar tends to play two kinds of innings. There are days when he looks like he can hit sixes with a pool cue, and there are days when he's out early. It's rare for him to spend time in the middle and struggle for fluency.
Tuesday night was that rare night. Dharamsala had rolled out a crack-ridden and somewhat two-paced pitch for Qualifier 1, and the bowlers had got the ball to skid through from a length on some occasions and to grip and kick on others. After a 76-run powerplay, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) had begun to feel the effects of this surface, scoring only 52 for 2 from overs 7 to 13. Patidar had been in the middle for much of this time, looking quite unlike himself.
He then offered Gujarat Titans (GT) two opportunities in the 14th over; one skied off the leading edge, and one off a pull that didn't quite come off the middle. The second was a straightforward chance at deep square-leg, where Rabada put it down. By the middle of the 15th over, he had slugged and muscled his way to 22 off 14 balls without really hitting anything out of the sweet spot.
Then something happened. Something clicked. Something reawakened within Patidar. He went from 22 off 14 to 61 off 22, and eventually 93 not out off 33.
That's 71 runs off 19 balls.
From scratchy beginnings, Patidar's innings turned incandescent. He hit sixes in all directions, against all kinds of bowling, off all kinds of lengths. He launched a good-length ball from Rashid Khan over extra-cover. He carved a low full-toss from Mohammed Siraj over backward point, one-handed. He shifted his weight onto the back foot and opened his hips - this is the starting point for so many of his shots - to manufacture a bottom-handed shovel-drive straight down the ground off a near-yorker from Prasidh Krishna.
By the time he was done, he had made the quickest of the 25 90-plus scores of IPL 2026, at a strike rate of 281.81. And during the course of his 93* off 33, RCB's other batters and extras made 68 off 37 balls.
For Patidar, this innings was merely the highest point of a transcendent season, one in which he has raised the bar for middle-order batters across the IPL. His middle-overs (7-16) runs have come at a strike rate of 206.66, and of the 50 batters to have scored at least 100 runs in this phase, only three - Finn Allen, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Ryan Rickelton - have gone quicker. All three are openers.
The next-best non-opener on the list, Ishan Kishan, has gone at 185.50 in this phase. In runs-per-over terms, Patidar has been scoring at more than a run an over quicker than the next-best non-opener in the middle overs.
From watching him bat, and listening to him talk about his innings, you almost get a sense that Patidar brings a powerplay basher's mentality to the middle overs, a combination of supreme confidence in his methods, supreme indifference to risk, and supreme ball-striking ability. He's particularly renowned for manhandling spin, and as he showed on Tuesday he's perfectly capable of demolishing pace as well.
On days like Tuesday, then, it can feel impossible for an opposition to find a type of bowler or a mode of attack that can keep Patidar quiet. He's so good against spin turning in either direction that GT took Rashid out of the attack when Patidar came in, even though he had figures of 0 for 8 in two overs at that stage. When they eventually brought Rashid back, Patidar confirmed their fears, hitting him for two sixes in the 16th over.
And when you turn to your best fast bowler, that may not matter either. You can go to someone as good as Rabada, an elite operator in the best rhythm of his life, and he can bowl a perfectly good delivery, and it may not matter at all.
All you can do then is marvel, open-jawed, hand on mouth, and watch the ball soar.