by Every time a bowler oversteps in the IPL, the batting side gets a gift.
Not just the free hit. The extra ball is already a problem.
And then, on the very next delivery, the batter can try anything. A slog. A ramp.
A flat six over mid-on. No dismissal risk. Pure upside.
The five bowlers on this list handed that gift out more than anyone else in IPL history.
Bowlers With the Most No Balls in IPL History
Some of the names are expected. One, the man at the top, probably isn’t.
The Real Cost of a No Ball in T20 Cricket
Most cricket fans know a no ball gives a free hit. Fewer think about how much that changes the batter’s mindset.
In a normal delivery, a batter calculates risk. Swing and miss, and you could be stumped, caught, or bowled.
That calculation disappears on a free hit. The batter knows only a run-out can end their innings on that ball.
That’s a fundamentally different mental state, and it shows in the numbers. Batters score more runs off free hits than off regular deliveries.
The scoring rate on free hits across IPL history is noticeably higher than on normal balls.
No balls also slow over rates, create fielding reset issues, and put pressure on the bowling team’s plans.
One stray delivery in a tight over can unravel a captain’s strategy entirely.
Bowlers With the Most No Balls in IPL History
| Rank | Bowler | No Balls | Matches | Wickets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jasprit Bumrah | 39 | 155 | 186 |
| 2 | Umesh Yadav | 24 | 148 | 144 |
| 3 | S. Sreesanth | 23 | 44 | — |
| 4 | Ishant Sharma | 23 | 117 | 96 |
| 5 | Amit Mishra | 21 | 162 | 174 |
5. Amit Mishra (21 No Balls, 162 Matches)
There is a reason Mishra is the only spinner here. Leg-spin doesn’t naturally produce no balls.
The action is slower, more rotational. There’s no explosive drive off the front foot that sends a fast bowler past the crease. Yet across 162 matches and 561.5 overs, Mishra still reached 21.
Pure volume. When you bowl as many deliveries as Mishra did, across 17 seasons for four clubs, a small fraction of them will be no balls even if your action is clean.
His other IPL records are considerably more impressive. Three hat-tricks in the league, still unmatched by anyone. 174 wickets in total.
4. Ishant Sharma (23 No Balls, 117 Matches)
Ishant Sharma’s front-foot problem is one of the more documented technical issues in Indian cricket.
His tall frame, long stride, and high-arm action all contribute. The stride carries him deep into his delivery stride, and under pressure, that landing occasionally crosses the line. He’s been flagged for it at the test level, too.
In 117 IPL matches and 403.1 overs between 2008 and 2026, he has collected 23 no balls and 96 wickets at 8.37 economy. He is still playing for the Gujarat Titans in IPL 2026.
3. S. Sreesanth (23 No Balls, 44 Matches)
Same number as Ishant. Entirely different context.
Sreesanth’s 23 no balls came in 44 matches. Ishant needed 117 to get there.
That rate gap alone makes Sreesanth the real outlier on this list.
Then comes the reason those no balls are remembered beyond just statistics.
In 2013, allegations surfaced that Sreesanth deliberately bowled no balls during the Rajasthan Royals’ IPL season as part of a spot-fixing scheme.
The BCCI banned him. Courts later set the ban aside, but the cloud over those specific deliveries never fully lifted.
His IPL career covered Punjab Kings, Kochi Tuskers Kerala, and Rajasthan Royals between 2007 and 2013. He bowled 880 total deliveries in the competition.
2. Umesh Yadav (24 No Balls, 148 Matches)
Umesh Yadav was a bowler who made his living through pace and aggression.
Playing for four different IPL franchises between 2010 and 2024, he appeared in 148 matches and took 144 wickets while bowling 3,050 deliveries. Among those: 24 no balls.
His best IPL season came in 2014 with the Kolkata Knight Riders, taking 11 wickets as they lifted the trophy.
A bowler who bowled hard and fast, Yadav’s no-ball record tracks almost exactly with his approach to pace bowling. Push hard enough, long enough, and the crease becomes a risk.
1. Jasprit Bumrah (39 No Balls, 155 Matches)
This is the number that stops people mid-scroll.
Jasprit Bumrah, 39 no balls. More than anyone else in IPL history. A gap of 15 between him and second place.
This is the same bowler whose yorkers are studied by coaches, replayed in slow motion, and cited whenever the conversation turns to precision in death bowling.
His action is so unique that analysts have spent years trying to explain why it’s so hard to read.
Yet the front foot tells a different story. Bumrah’s low-arm, side-on delivery style generates unusual angles and movement, but it puts his front foot under constant pressure during the release.
He also tends to bowl his most intense spells in the highest-leverage situations: final overs, tight chases, must-win games for Mumbai Indians.
That combination, unusual mechanics plus maximum effort in maximum pressure, produces no balls at a rate no other elite bowler has matched in IPL cricket.
He has five IPL titles, 186 wickets, and this record. The first two are the story. The third is the footnote.
A Word on the “Least No Balls” Side of This Record
Searching for the bowler who has never bowled a no ball in the IPL, or who has the fewest, hits a dead end quickly.
The IPL and ESPNcricinfo do not publish a ranked table of no-ball frequency per bowler.
The data exists in ball-by-ball records but isn’t surfaced as a searchable stat.
What we do know: spinners bowl far fewer no balls than pace bowlers as a category.
Off-spinners and left-arm orthodox bowlers rarely appear in these conversations.
If you’re looking for the cleanest record, the answer is almost certainly a spinner with a modest overcount.
FAQs
- Q: Who has the most no balls in IPL history?
Jasprit Bumrah, with 39 across 155 matches. He is the only bowler in IPL history to have bowled more than 30.
- Q: What is a free hit in T20 cricket?
After a no ball, the next delivery is a free hit. The batter cannot be dismissed except by a run-out, meaning they can attack without any risk of losing their wicket.
- Q: Why do fast bowlers bowl more no balls than spinners?
Fast bowlers drive hard off their front foot to generate pace. That force carries them further into the crease and increases the risk of overstepping. Spinners have a slower, more controlled action that rarely produces the same stress on the crease line.
- Q: Was Sreesanth’s no-ball record linked to spot-fixing?
Allegations in 2013 claimed he deliberately bowled no balls as part of a spot-fixing arrangement. The BCCI banned him, though courts later overturned the ban. Whether any specific no balls were deliberate was never conclusively proven in court.
- Q: Which bowler has bowled the most no balls in international cricket?
This article focuses on IPL records. International no-ball records across Tests, ODIs, and T20Is are tracked separately and not covered here.
- Q: Is the highest no balls in a single IPL over recorded anywhere?
Not in any publicly available single-stat format. Ball-by-ball data exists in archives, but the “most no balls in one over” record has not surfaced as a tracked stat on the main cricket data platforms.
Summing Up:
The list of bowlers with the most no balls in IPL history reads like a hall of fame: Bumrah, Umesh, Ishant, Sreesanth, Mishra.
Four Indian internationals and one who played for India before controversy ended his career.
That tells you something useful. No balls are not a symptom of poor bowling. They’re a symptom of bowling at pace, under pressure, for a long time.
Bumrah leads this list not because he’s careless. He leads it because he has bowled more intensely, in more high-pressure IPL moments, than anyone else on it.
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