Most dot balls played by a batsman in the IPL

It won’t come as any surprise that the list of most dot balls played by a batsman in the IPL is dominated by those players who have had the longest careers, playing at the top of the order and therefore had the most opportunity to play the most dot balls in the IPL.

We start then with a list of batsman that have played over 1000 dot balls in the IPL. Note that there is a very good chance that AB de Villiers and Ambati Rayudu will join this all time list of most dot balls played by a batsman in the IPL during the 2021 season.

Batsman	Dot Balls
V Kohli	1496
S Dhawan	1487
RG Sharma	1436
CH Gayle	1383
RV Uthappa	1350
DA Warner	1306
SK Raina	1267
G Gambhir	1227
AM Rahane	1182
SR Watson	1157
MS Dhoni	1103
KD Karthik	1018

Our 2^nd table looks at the most dot balls played by a batsman in the IPL in a single season. Again it’s worth pointing out here that the 2011-2013 IPL seasons had more teams in them, meaning more games and accounting for a higher number of dot balls.

Year	Batsman	Dot Balls
2013*	MEK Hussey	202
2013*	R Dravid	199
2015	LMP Simmons	198
2010	SC Ganguly	194
2011*	SR Tendulkar	194
2010	JH Kallis	191
2014	DR Smith	187
2012*	R Dravid	186
2013*	CH Gayle	185
2013*	AM Rahane	183

The next table then lists the most dot balls played by a batsman in each season of the IPL. David Warner is the only player to have appeared on this list twice.

Season	Batsman	Dot Balls
2008	SE Marsh	159
2009	JH Kallis	150
2010	SC Ganguly	194
2011*	SR Tendulkar	194
2012*	R Dravid	186
2013*	MEK Hussey	202
2014	DR Smith	187
2015	LMP Simmons	198
2016	DA Warner	182
2017	DA Warner	161
2018	CA Lynn	160
2019	SR Watson	152
2020	KL Rahul	175

As our focus gets a little sharper, we move onto consider the most dot balls played by batsmen on both teams in a single match of the IPL . Here we list the IPL games that have finished with more than a majority of dot balls from the available 240 at the start of the game.

The most dot balls in a single IPL match actually occurred in the 4th fixture of the tournament in its debut season. Deccan Chargers captain VVS Laxman whose side limped to 110 all out from 18.4 overs in the game labelled the pitch as “shocking” while the Bengal Cricket Association took the decision to appoint an Australian pitch curator to help improve conditions at Eden Gardens for the remainder of the tournament.

Year	Fixture	Dot Balls
2008	KKR v DC	133
2009	KKR v RR	132
2019	CSK v RCB	127
2008	CSK v RCB	122
2009	DD v KXIP	121
2011	MI v RR	121
2019	KKR v CSK	121

Onwards then to the most dot balls played in a team’s innings in the IPL. Not surprisingly innings from the matches in the list above feature heavily here and the list is dominated by sides batting first.

Year	Fixture	Team (innings)	Score (overs)	Dot Balls
2019	KKR v MI	KKR (1)	108/9 (20)	75
2020	KKR v RCB	KKR (1)	84/8 (20)	72
2011	MI v DD	MI (1)	92/10 (19.2)	69
2009	DC v RCB	DC (1)	82/10 (18.3)	69
2009	DC v KKR	KKR (1)	101/10 (19.4)	69
2011	KTK v RR	RR (1)	97/10 (18.3)	69
2013	DD v SRH	DD (1)	114/8 (20)	68
2016	DD v KXIP	KXIP (1)	111/9 (20)	68
2008	CSK v RCB	CSK (2)	112/8 (20)	68
2008	KXIP v MI	MI (2)	116/9 (20)	68

We finish off with the most dot balls played by a batsman in the IPL in a single innings. Dwayne Bravo holds the honour having been promoted to open the batting in Mumbai Indian’s game against KXIP and batting through the innings in a fairly sedate manner as MI cruised home.

Year	Fixture	Batsman	Runs (balls)	Dot Balls
2009	KXIP v MI	DJ Bravo	70 (59)	30
2013	MI v KKR	DR Smith	47 (53)	29
2014	SRH v MI	AJ Finch	68 (62)	29
2014	CSK v RCB	CH Gayle	46 (50)	28
2014	MI v CSK	DR Smith	57 (51)	28
2019	CSK v MI	SR Watson	80 (59)	27
2009	KXIP v MI	JP Duminy	59 (63)	27
2019	MI v CSK	KM Jadhav	58 (54)	27
2019	CSK v RCB	AT Rayudu	28 (42)	27

Last updated March 2021