NEW DELHI: There are days in IPL history that live forever. Days when the game exceeds itself, goes somewhere it has never been before, and leaves you wondering whether you actually witnessed what you think you did. Saturday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium was unquestionably one of those days.
After KL Rahul’s staggering 152 not out had already redrawn the boundaries of what seemed possible in a scorching Delhi afternoon, Punjab Kings walked out to chase 265. Not 200. Not 220. Two hundred and sixty five. And they got there with seven balls to spare and six wickets remaining. Let that settle.
Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya made sure the chase never felt like a tall order. From the very first ball, this was not a team operating under the weight of an impossible target. This was a team that had simply decided the target was irrelevant. Prabhsimran (76 off 23b; 9×4, 5×6), in particular, was something otherworldly. He played an innings that was viscerally violent.
Priyansh Arya (43 off 17b; 2×4, 5×6), at the other end, was no passenger. Together they crashed 116 runs in the Powerplay, nine fours and ten sixes between them, reducing what should have been a fortress total into something that felt negotiable. It was the second highest Powerplay score ever in the IPL.
Then came the wobble. Axar Patel removed Arya, Kuldeep Yadav trapped Prabhsimran lbw, and Cooper Connolly fell too, bowled by a Kuldeep googly. In the space of 16 balls, Punjab had gone from 126 for none to 145 for 3, and suddenly Delhi sensed something. A game that had felt over began to breathe again.
Enter Shreyas Iyer. Calm. Precise. Completely unruffled.
Iyer’s unbeaten 71 off 36 balls (3×4, 7×6) was not the flashiest innings of the day. But it was, arguably, the most important. With Shashank Singh providing sensible company at the other end with 19 not out off 10 balls, Iyer guided Punjab home by six wickets as if the whole exercise was a mere formality.
With this win, Punjab Kings now hold the record for the highest successful run chase across all men’s T20 cricket, not just the IPL.
Earlier, KL Rahul (152* off 67b; 16×4, 9×6) scripted an innings that felt less like a return to form and more like a reclamation of identity. Rahul didn’t just score a breathtaking ton for Delhi Capitals — he dismantled, dictated and, at times, dazzled with a freedom that has often eluded him in the shortest format.
For the longest time, Rahul’s T20 career has resembled a man dragging a heavy suitcase of strike-rate anxieties. But that was not the case on Saturday, as Rahul decided to abandon the suitcase.
It could have been very different though. Rahul began with a couple of crisp boundaries off Xavier Bartlett; however, the defining moment came when Shashank Singh spilled a chance at deep square leg off Arshdeep Singh. It wasn’t a sitter, but it was one of those opportunities that, when missed against a batter of Rahul’s calibre, tend to echo through the rest of the innings. Punjab would spend the next two hours chasing that moment.
If Rahul’s early strokes were about timing, Nitish Rana’s were about intent. Rana set the tempo, taking on the bowlers, especially Bartlett, whose one over went for 28 and shifted the momentum irreversibly. Rana’s 91 off 44 balls (11×4, 4×6) ensured Delhi never dipped after losing Pathum Nissanka early to a miscued pull off Arshdeep Singh’s bowling, as wicketkeeper Prabhsimran Singh grabbed an easy catch behind the stumps.
What followed was a partnership that will be spoken about in IPL folklore. Rahul and Rana stitched together 220 runs for the second wicket — the second-highest stand in the league’s history, only behind the 229-run blitz by Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers in 2016.
Rahul’s half-century came in just 26 balls; and after reaching the milestone, he just went into overdrive. There was a clarity in his shot selection, an absence of the tentativeness that has crept into his T20 game in recent years. He took apart Arshdeep for 20 in an over, then reached his hundred off 47 balls against Marco Jansen. Each phase of his innings felt like a shedding of layers — from caution to control, and finally to complete command.
For a player often critiqued for pacing his innings too conservatively in T20s, this was Rahul unburdened. He accessed all parts of the ground, not with reckless abandon but with calculated authority.
Rana, meanwhile, played the perfect co-author. His innings ensured Punjab never got a foothold. When he fell, dismissed by Bartlett, it brought an end not just to a monumental stand but had effectively broken the spirit of the Punjab bowlers.
Rahul, though, was far from done. He surged past 150, finishing unbeaten on 152 — the highest individual T20 score by an Indian and the third highest in IPL history, behind Chris Gayle’s 175* and Brendon McCullum’s 158*.
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