As Jacob Duffy stood at the top of his mark on his IPL debut for Royal Challengers Bengaluru, plotting to bowl to Sunrisers Hyderabad's Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan, his mind might have drifted back to Ahmedabad.
Three weeks earlier, on the night of the T20 World Cup final, he had been taken for 42 runs in three wicketless overs. Abhishek, in particular, had been ruthless. Short of form when coming into the final, Abhishek needed just two overs from Duffy to surge to an 18-ball half-century and set up India's mammoth total.
The stage at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, though, was different. The surface, as RCB captain Rajat Patidar would later put it, had "spongy bounce early on", in stark contrast to the flat track at the Narendra Modi Stadium. And unlike that night, when the crowd had been firmly against him, this time nearly 30,000 voices were behind him.
Still, when the third ball of the night is lofted over cover for six by the same batter who had tormented him weeks ago, the middle can feel like a lonely place. But Duffy tackled his challenge head-on, reverting to a hard length and using the surface to nip the ball around off the seam.
The reward came almost instantly. Off the first ball of his second over, Abhishek top-edged a pull he was late on, trying to fetch the ball from outside off, and found Jitesh Sharma behind the stumps.
The same over brought more reward. Travis Head belted Duffy down the ground when he erred by bowling fuller, but Duffy responded immediately by bowling back of good length, into the body, and Head pulled the delivery straight to deep square leg. Duffy had picked up two wickets in the over.
Then, in his third over, Nitish Kumar Reddy followed. Once again, the zip off the surface caused the damage, as Reddy's flat-batted attempt against the short ball ended at short midwicket. This wasn't hostility, just clarity and an understanding of his methods on a surface that suited his style.
"I just tried to keep things fairly simple," Duffy said later. "The plan was to use the new ball, especially since it does a bit here in Bangalore." In this case, simplicity proved devastating.
"We spoke a lot about lengths and what works on this surface," he said. "Josh Hazlewood had a really good season here last year, so it was about building on what he did well and trying to replicate that in my own way."
On the eve of the game, Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Daniel Vettori had spoken of Heinrich Klaasen being locked in at No. 4, but three overs into the campaign, those plans were already in flux. Sunrisers had adopted a Plan B, and Duffy played a central role in forcing that change.
And then, just as quickly, he was done. Four overs in one uninterrupted spell. There was no saving him for later. When the ball was new and hardest, and when it offered the most, he delivered. So what if Hazlewood wasn't available? Duffy ensured RCB didn't miss him.
"When the ball is new and hard here, that's probably the best time to bowl," he said. "I was fortunate to bowl in those phases and the other guys handled the tougher overs later."
Patidar would later reveal that bowling Duffy out wasn't pre-planned; it was an instinctive call, shaped by the impact he had already made. Having finished his job, Duffy walked off after the seventh over.
The pavilion block at the Chinnaswamy rose as one. Ten thousand voices, chanting his name. There were perhaps more people packed into that one corner than you might find in his hometown in Southland, at the tip of New Zealand's South Island.
"It was awesome," he said. "I've heard a lot of great things about Bangalore and RCB, and this was a hell of a way to start the campaign. I was lucky to pick up a few wickets early and then the skipper just kept giving me the ball. And as a bonus, I got to walk off after finishing my spell. It was a good day overall."
The rest of the night unfolded with Duffy's work already done. Devdutt Padikkal unfurled pristine strokeplay, while Virat Kohli bordered on the sublime. And yet, when it came to the final adjudication, it was Duffy's spell that the experts decided stood out, naming him the Player of the Match.
There will be tougher days, flatter pitches and batters who will test him, as Abhishek had in the World Cup final. But on this night, in conditions that felt like home and on a stage that was anything but, Duffy had left his mark.