Unboxed late, Shepherd makes it worth the wait

It was a week before IPL 2025, at Royal Challengers Bengaluru's curtain-raiser 'Unboxed' event, when Romario Shepherd gave the Chinnaswamy Stadium a glimpse of what he had to offer. Among the light-hearted team challenges was a six-hitting contest: three balls each, longest hit wins. Shepherd turned it into a no-contest, launching two of his three deliveries clean out of the ground.

For the first seven games, Shepherd was just a name in the dugout, proof of RCB's big-hitting riches, but never their need. Liam Livingstone held a middle-order spot. Tim David had the finishing brief. When Livingstone's form stayed cold, RCB made the swap. But even then, Shepherd's only swings came in the nets. Against CSK on Saturday, when Shepherd finally got his first innings of the season, it felt as if the six-hitting contest had never ended, only now, the stakes were real, the lights brighter, and the swing looser. He uncoiled like a spring held down too long: all tension, all power, all release.

Bengaluru has witnessed its share of jaw-dropping feats, but even the great Chris Gayle never notched a 14-ball half-century, the second-fastest in IPL history. Shepherd joined David just as RCB's innings was sputtering. From a commanding 114 for 1 after 11 overs, the next seven brought only 45 runs and four wickets, each CSK strike dragging the hosts into the mire on a notoriously tough ground to defend. These are the moments you need power in the ranks, and Shepherd had it in spades, ready to flip the game in a blink. For someone who hadn't batted all season, 14 balls were more than enough.

Khaleel Ahmed drew the short straw. His first short ball sat up and was swatted over deep mid-wicket. The pressure was instant. His next was pitched up, and Shepherd cleared his front leg to drill it down the ground. An edge flew for four over third man. Another hit, another six down the ground. Khaleel went around the stumps; Shepherd carved him over backward point. One wide yorker aside, the damage was terminal: with fewer fielders behind square, a top edge over short fine leg made it 33 off the over, the most expensive of the season.

"When I hit the first two, I knew I had the bowler under pressure," he said after the game. "I saw his body language, so I was like, 'okay, let me try and put you under some more pressure.' And I continued going, continued going. Then I saw him, he was kind of confused whether to go over or around. So I knew I had him. So just at that point, I just continued going.

"When I walked in, Timmy [Tim David] told me to relax and try and I did exactly that. He told me just to hold my shape a bit because the ball was gripping in the wicket. So my mindset automatically changed to just base up and watch the ball as it comes and try and hit in my areas. And don't try and swing too early. So at that point in the time, I was just focused on the ball and they mis-executed some of the plan, so I capitalised on that."

Shepherd's impact was best captured by the timestamps: his first 13 balls came in 14 breathless minutes. It took MS Dhoni two more minutes to get the field right for the last ball of the innings, and even then, the sixth six was inevitable. RCB had scored 54 from the final two overs – the most ever in the competition's history. Shepherd had 53* off 14 and his T20 career strike-rate in the last two overs stood at a staggering 304.76. He'd become the ninth RCB batter to notch a fifty this season – Bethell, the eighth, had done it earlier that evening. No one had ever scored an IPL fifty walking in after the 15th over. Shepherd came in at 17.5.

But just like his innings, he didn't linger. He sprinted off to get ready to bowl. Behind him, David, no stranger to hitting power himself, walked slowly, shaking his head, clapping his bat in disbelief. Much like everyone else beyond the boundary.