Punjab Kings posted 222 and lost. That’s IPL 2026 in one line.
When RR ended PBKS’s unbeaten streak on April 28, 2026, they did it by chasing 223 with four balls to spare at Mullanpur. RR’s chase of 223 confirmed what we’ve seen all tournament — chasing teams have dominated this IPL season. The last unbeaten team in the tournament finally took an L. But the way RR did it told a bigger story than the win itself. Yashasvi Jaiswal (51 off 27) and 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (43 off 16, five sixes) tore through PBKS pace in the Powerplay. Then both got out. So did Riyan Parag. So did Dhruv Jurel.
The openers set up the chase. Two players who shouldn’t have needed to bat finished it.
The Two Men Punjab Forgot Existed
Donovan Ferreira walked in with the chase wobbling and bludgeoned 52* off 26 — six fours, three sixes, Player of the Match. Impact substitute Shubham Dubey gave him 31* off 12. Their unbroken 77-run stand came off 32 balls, a run rate of 14.4. Ferreira sealed it by launching a low full-toss from Marco Jansen over long-on for six.
Marcus Stoinis had earlier given Punjab what should have been an unchaseable total — 62* off 22, including 24 off the final over. It still wasn’t enough. Because Punjab’s pace attack is broken, and one bad night was always coming.
The Numbers That Ended the Unbeaten Run
Lockie Ferguson 0/57. Arshdeep Singh 1/68. Marco Jansen 0/41. Three frontline pacers, combined figures of 1/166. Yuzvendra Chahal took 3/36 and got no support from the other end. Shreyas Iyer’s 30 off 27 — strike rate 111 — sparked a retire-out debate post-match, but Murali Kartik called the right shot: it was the bowlers who lost this game, not the captain who batted slow.
Punjab still sit top of the table with 13 points from eight games. The unbeaten run papered over a death-overs problem the rest of the season can’t afford to ignore. RR moved to third in the IPL 2026 points table with 12 from nine — the playoff math tightening as the season’s midpoint approaches — building on their previous win over LSG — and they did it without their openers ever needing to finish the job.
The invincibility wasn’t real. It was just expensive batting hiding cheap bowling.