Across 18 IPL seasons, 2008 to 2025, batters coming in at No. 8 or lower have scored a fifty exactly seven times. Seven, in more than 2,300 team innings. And six of those seven came in a losing cause. That one number explains the lower order better than any highlight reel: when the tail is still batting with intent in the 17th over, the plan has usually already failed.
But the job is changing. Between 2008 and 2022, No. 8 to No. 11 scored at a strike rate of 108.2. Across 2023, 2024 and 2025, the first three seasons of the Impact Player rule, that figure jumped to 121.6. Four of those seven lower-order fifties were scored in that three-year window, three of them in 2024 alone. This piece rebuilds the lower-order record book from ball-by-ball data and asks a simple question: what does a "tail" even mean in modern T20 cricket?
Method: batting positions are derived from the order in which each batter first arrived at the crease in Cricsheet's ball-by-ball data for all 1,169 IPL matches from 2008 to 2025. Super overs are excluded.
The Innings That Rewrote the Lower-Order Ceiling
Rashid Khan, 79* off 32 — Wankhede, 12 May 2023
The highest score ever made from No. 8 or lower in the IPL came in a match Gujarat Titans had no business keeping close. Chasing 219 against Mumbai Indians after Suryakumar Yadav's unbeaten century, the Titans were 100 for 6 in the 13th over when Rashid Khan walked in, and 103 for 8 a few balls later. He hit ten sixes in a 32-ball 79 not out, still the record for any batter at No. 8 or below.
He and Alzarri Joseph added 88 unbroken runs for the ninth wicket off 40 balls, which remains the highest ninth-wicket stand in IPL history. Gujarat lost by 27 runs and finished on 191 for 8. Even so, it was the clearest early sign that the 2023 rule change had created a new kind of No. 8: a specialist bowler who could also bat like a frontline finisher.
Pat Cummins, 66* off 34 — Wankhede, 21 April 2021
Two years earlier, Pat Cummins had produced the template. Kolkata Knight Riders, chasing 221 against Chennai Super Kings, were 31 for 5 inside the powerplay. Andre Russell and Dinesh Karthik had dragged them to 112 for 6 when Cummins arrived at No. 8 in the 12th over. He hit six sixes, four of them in a 30-run Sam Curran over, which pushed a dead chase into the last over. KKR were bowled out for 202 and lost by 18. At the time it was the highest score by a No. 8 in the competition, and it stood until Rashid's night in Mumbai.
Cummins also owns the most famous lower-order innings that does not appear in this record list: his 56* off 15 balls against Mumbai in Pune on 6 April 2022, which equalled the fastest fifty in IPL history. He batted at No. 7 that night, one place too high for this list.
Harbhajan Singh, 64 off 24 — Wankhede, 12 April 2015
The oldest of the great tail-end innings belongs to Harbhajan Singh, who remains the most productive lower-order batter the IPL has seen (see the career table below). Against Kings XI Punjab in 2015, Mumbai were chasing 178 and in ruins when Harbhajan came in at No. 8. His 64 off 24, with six sixes, anchored a seventh-wicket stand of 100 off 38 balls. Mumbai still fell 18 short on 159 for 7, which fits the pattern: lower-order brilliance mostly decorates defeats.
Andre Russell, 64* off 25 — Eden Gardens, 23 March 2024
The exception to that pattern is the only lower-order fifty that won a match. On the opening weekend of 2024, KKR were 119 for 6 against Sunrisers Hyderabad when Andre Russell came in at No. 8. That a batter of Russell's class was batting that low says a lot about the post-2023 era. He made 64 off 25 with seven sixes, added 81 off 33 for the seventh wicket with Rinku Singh, and pushed KKR to 208 for 7. Heinrich Klaasen's 63 brought Sunrisers within four runs, and the lower order made the difference. KKR won the title that season.
The Data Deep-Dive
Every fifty scored from No. 8 or lower (2008–2025)
| Runs | Balls | 6s | Batter | Team | Opponent | Date | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 79* | 32 | 10 | Rashid Khan | GT | MI | 12 May 2023 | Lost by 27 runs |
| 66* | 34 | 6 | Pat Cummins | KKR | CSK | 21 Apr 2021 | Lost by 18 runs |
| 64 | 24 | 6 | Harbhajan Singh | MI | Kings XI Punjab | 12 Apr 2015 | Lost by 18 runs |
| 64* | 25 | 7 | Andre Russell | KKR | SRH | 23 Mar 2024 | Won by 4 runs |
| 61 | 28 | 7 | Ashutosh Sharma | PBKS | MI | 18 Apr 2024 | Lost by 9 runs |
| 58* | 33 | 5 | Arshad Khan | LSG | DC | 14 May 2024 | Lost by 19 runs |
| 52* | 41 | 1 | Chris Morris | Delhi Daredevils | MI | 22 Apr 2017 | Lost by 14 runs |
Seven innings, one win. Every one of those seven teams was chasing the game, in a literal chase or after a top-order collapse. Harbhajan's 49 off 18 from No. 9* against Deccan Chargers at DY Patil Stadium on 28 March 2010 is the highest score from that position. It came in a Mumbai win, so it is arguably the most useful tail-end innings on record.
The partnership record book — wickets 7 to 10
| Wicket | Runs | Balls | Pair | Match | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7th | 100 | 38 | Harbhajan Singh & J Suchith | MI v Kings XI Punjab | 12 Apr 2015 |
| 7th | 91* | 53 | AB de Villiers & Iqbal Abdulla | RCB v Gujarat Lions, Qualifier 1 | 24 May 2016 |
| 8th | 73* | 42 | Ayush Badoni & Arshad Khan | LSG v DC | 12 Apr 2024 |
| 8th | 69 | 41 | Brad Hodge & James Faulkner | RR v MI | 19 May 2014 |
| 9th | 88* | 40 | Alzarri Joseph & Rashid Khan | GT v MI | 12 May 2023 |
| 9th | 43 | 31 | Imran Tahir & Sam Curran | CSK v MI | 23 Oct 2020 |
| 10th | 55* | 30 | Shikhar Dhawan & Mohit Rathee | PBKS v SRH | 9 Apr 2023 |
| 10th | 33 | 21 | Pat Cummins & V Viyaskanth | SRH v KKR, Qualifier 1 | 21 May 2024 |
Two of these deserve a second look. The 91 between de Villiers and Iqbal Abdulla is the most consequential lower-order stand in IPL history. [Royal Challengers](/teams/royal-challengers-bangalore) were 68 for 6 chasing 159 in the 2016 Qualifier 1. De Villiers made 79 and Abdulla, batting at No. 8, faced 25 balls for 33* to send RCB to the final.
The 10th-wicket record is stranger. On 9 April 2023 in Hyderabad, Shikhar Dhawan carried his bat for 99* as Punjab Kings recovered from 88 for 9 to 143 for 9. Mohit Rathee contributed one run to the 55-run last-wicket stand. It is a lower-order record built almost entirely by an opener.
The eighth-wicket record also belongs to the Impact Player era. Ayush Badoni (55) and Arshad Khan took [Lucknow Super Giants](/teams/lucknow-super-giants) from 94 for 7 to 167 for 7 against [Delhi Capitals](/teams/delhi-capitals) at the Ekana on 12 April 2024. Three days later, Arshad made his own 58 against the same opponents.
Era by era: how the tail's job has changed
| Era | Strike rate (No. 8–11) | Runs per team innings | Balls faced per team innings | Sixes per 100 balls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008–2012 | 104.3 | 6.98 | 6.69 | 3.30 |
| 2013–2017 | 111.0 | 6.99 | 6.30 | 4.13 |
| 2018–2022 | 109.6 | 6.58 | 6.01 | 4.59 |
| 2023–2025 | 121.6 | 9.47 | 7.79 | 6.23 |
For 15 seasons the lower order was remarkably stable: around seven runs per team innings at a strike rate of roughly 105 to 110. Then the numbers jump. Since 2023, No. 8 to No. 11 score about 40% more runs per innings and hit sixes nearly twice as often as in 2008–2012.
The counter-intuitive finding is in the third column. You might expect the Impact Player rule, by adding a batter, to keep the tail off the field. Instead, No. 8 and below faced more balls per team innings in 2023–2025 (7.79) than at any point in the previous 15 years. The extra batting depth has made top orders more reckless, so more wickets fall early and more deliveries reach the lower order. Those deliveries now go to players such as Rashid, Ashutosh and Arshad rather than genuine No. 11s.
2024 was the peak. The lower order scored at 132.4, hit 89 sixes (the previous high was 44, in 2013) and produced 28 scores of 20 or more. That was nearly double any pre-2023 season. Runs from No. 8 and below made up 6.2% of all IPL runs in 2024, the highest share on record. The lowest was 2.8%, in 2019.
The career lower-order list (runs from No. 8 or lower, 2008–2025)
| Batter | Runs | Innings | Strike rate | Sixes | Best |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harbhajan Singh | 507 | 49 | 142.8 | 28 | 64 |
| Piyush Chawla | 472 | 70 | 111.1 | 15 | 24 |
| Pat Cummins | 437 | 37 | 150.7 | 29 | 66* |
| Rashid Khan | 382 | 45 | 152.2 | 24 | 79* |
| Amit Mishra | 328 | 51 | 92.1 | 5 | 30 |
| R Ashwin | 321 | 50 | 108.8 | 6 | 33 |
| Bhuvneshwar Kumar | 320 | 71 | 91.2 | 3 | 27 |
| MS Dhoni | 267 | 17 | 170.1 | 21 | 37* |
| Jofra Archer | 238 | 24 | 153.5 | 16 | 30 |
| Ashutosh Sharma | 212 | 7 | 187.6 | 18 | 61 |
Innings = innings in which the batter faced at least one ball.
Two names stand out for strike rate rather than volume. MS Dhoni's late-career move down the order has produced 267 runs at 170.1 from No. 8 or lower, including 37 off 16 against Delhi in Visakhapatnam on 31 March 2024 and 28 off 9 against Lucknow on 19 April 2024. Ashutosh Sharma has needed only seven innings to score 212 runs at 187.6, the best strike rate of anyone with a meaningful sample.
Piyush Chawla and Bhuvneshwar Kumar tell the older story: 70-plus innings each, played mostly as genuine lower-order batters, at strike rates close to a run a ball.
The fastest cameos
The quickest 25-plus scores from No. 8 or below are dominated by the same few names. Rashid's 34 off 10 balls against KKR at Eden Gardens on 25 May 2018 came in Qualifier 2 and sent [Sunrisers Hyderabad](/teams/sunrisers-hyderabad) to the final. [Jofra Archer](/players/jofra-archer)'s 27 off 8 at Sharjah on 22 September 2020, four sixes off Lungi Ngidi in the last over, set up a Rajasthan Royals win over Chennai. Both are short, decisive innings that change results, which is exactly what the 50-run innings in the table above failed to do.
Legacy Impact — What This Means Now
The lower-order record book is effectively being rewritten in real time. Four of the seven fifties from No. 8 or lower, the eighth- and ninth-wicket records, and the highest-ever lower-order strike rate all come from 2023 or later. The Impact Player rule, which the IPL kept beyond its trial seasons, has turned No. 8 from a bowler who might hang around into a designated hitter who usually arrives with fewer than five overs left.
That changes how matches should be read. A team at 100 for 6 after 13 overs in 2016 was usually beaten. The same score now carries real comeback potential, because the batter walking out at No. 8 might be a Washington Sundar or an Axar Patel. Axar's 38* off 17 at No. 8, in a 75-run unbroken stand with Lalit Yadav, chased down 178 against Mumbai at the Brabourne on 27 March 2022 from 104 for 6. It is still the model for a lower-order chase.
This is one of the depth signals CricMind's Oracle reads before a match. The model uses each side's recent form and ratings rather than a hand-picked roster, but a team's ability to recover from collapses shows up in its results. That is one reason the Oracle's win probabilities often hold steadier through a top-order wobble than a fan's instinct would. You can test any two sides yourself in the Matchup Machine, or see every current call on the predictions hub.
For fans following the record books, the next milestones are clear. Nobody has scored a hundred from No. 8 or lower; the record is still Rashid's 79. The ninth-wicket record of 88 looks vulnerable. And the 10th-wicket record of 55 has stood since 2023 even though it relied on a centurion-in-waiting rather than two tail-enders.
Three Takeaways
- Lower-order fifties are a sign of a failed plan, not a winning one. Six of the seven fifties scored from No. 8 or lower in IPL history came in defeats; Andre Russell's 64* against Sunrisers in March 2024 is the lone exception.
- The Impact Player era has changed the tail. No. 8 to No. 11 scored at 121.6 across 2023–2025 against 108.2 in 2008–2022, faced more balls, and hit sixes almost twice as often as in the IPL's first five seasons.
- Short cameos win more matches than long rescues. Rashid's 34 off 10 in the 2018 Qualifier 2 and Archer's 27 off 8 in 2020 decided matches; most of the 50-run lower-order innings did not.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the highest score by a No. 8 batter in IPL history?
Rashid Khan's 79 not out off 32 balls for Gujarat Titans against Mumbai Indians at Wankhede Stadium on 12 May 2023 is the highest IPL score by any batter at No. 8 or lower. It included ten sixes, although Gujarat lost by 27 runs.
How many fifties have been scored from No. 8 or lower in the IPL?
Seven between 2008 and 2025: Rashid Khan (79), Pat Cummins (66), Harbhajan Singh (64), Andre Russell (64), Ashutosh Sharma (61), Arshad Khan (58) and Chris Morris (52*). Only Russell's came in a winning cause.
What is the highest ninth-wicket partnership in the IPL?
Alzarri Joseph and Rashid Khan added 88 unbroken runs off 40 balls for Gujarat Titans against Mumbai Indians on 12 May 2023, the IPL record for the ninth wicket.
What is the highest 10th-wicket partnership in IPL history?
Shikhar Dhawan and Mohit Rathee added 55 unbroken runs for Punjab Kings against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Hyderabad on 9 April 2023. Dhawan finished on 99 not out after carrying his bat through the innings.
Who has scored the most IPL runs batting at No. 8 or lower?
Harbhajan Singh, with 507 runs in 49 innings at a strike rate of 142.8 between 2008 and 2021. Piyush Chawla (472) and Pat Cummins (437) follow.
Has the Impact Player rule changed lower-order batting in the IPL?
Yes. Across 2023–2025, batters at No. 8 to No. 11 scored 9.47 runs per team innings at a strike rate of 121.6, compared with 6.85 runs at 108.2 from 2008 to 2022. The 2024 season set records for lower-order sixes (89) and strike rate (132.4).
Has anyone scored a century batting at No. 8 or lower in the IPL?
No. The highest score from No. 8 or lower is Rashid Khan's 79, and the highest from No. 9 is Harbhajan Singh's 49 off 18 against Deccan Chargers in 2010. For the full list of three-figure scores, see our IPL century club record.
Related: [the highest partnerships in IPL history](/news/ipl-record-highest-partnerships-all-time) · [the biggest batting collapses](/news/ipl-record-biggest-batting-collapses-sub-100-totals-all-time) · [the 200 club and the scoring revolution](/news/ipl-record-200-club-scoring-revolution-2008-2026)