Rajasthan Royals end Punjab Kings' unbeaten streak in IPL 2026

Rajasthan Royals' batting at both ends of the innings powered them in their big chase in Mullanpur, ending Punjab Kings' unbeaten dominance in IPL 2026. Prabhsimran Singh scored another fifty and Marcus Stoinis bossed the death overs to take the hosts to 222/4, but Punjab's bowling came up short in the end. Their top three, led by Vaibhav Sooryavanshi in the Powerplay and Donovan Ferreira and Shubham Dubey, an impact substitute, at the final whistle. Jofra Archer cranked up the pace and got some early swing to trouble Priyansh Arya. The Englishman was too much for even Prabhsimran Singh, fresh off a mind-boggling 76 off 26. Even though Nandre Burger bowled quickly, it was easy to criticize his lengths. Arya could hit through the line and Prabhsimran kept moving his front foot out of the way and taking the South African on. Burger bowled half of the Powerplay overs and gave up 45 Royals out of the phase's 65. No such starting troubles for Sooryavanshi though. Arshdeep Singh bowled two good away swinging full deliveries for him to defend, but the moment Arshdeep switched to inswing, the ferocious bat speed swung into action and he flicked his first six of the game. He then hit two fours on either side of the wicket in the same over, as if to suggest that there are no real strategies to stop the 15-year-old. The ball flew as Lockie Ferguson came up to try his luck next. The New Zealander went full, and Sooryavanshi played a wristy flick for a six; Ferguson changed pace with a knuckleball, same result. Marco Jansen also tried to deceive with a slower one, only for Sooryavanshi to hit it over deep midwicket. The trick, as it turned out, was in Arshdeep going round the stumps and angling it away from the left-hander. Sooryavanshi hit the straight boundary with a low full-toss of his own. But hit it to Shreyas Iyer, and walked off dejected for a 16-ball 43. RR didn't let the wicket dampen their Powerplay spirits. Both Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel kept the fours and sixes coming. Despite a fabulous first over from Harpreet Brar, which included two singles and four dots, RR came away with 84/1 in six overs, which proved pivotal in the end. The start's mess was cleaned up by the Punjab spinners. In his subsequent two overs, Brar only gave up one four and continued to be difficult to contain. Yuzvendra Chahal had a good start as well, scoring five runs. He too broke through with a full-toss - Dhruv Jurel aimed to tonk the hit-me ball over long on but found the boundary rider there instead. Jaiswal reached his half-century, but he was Chahal's next victim when he fell to a delivery that had been tossed up and found the long off-fielder. Riyan Parag showed signs of finally stepping up to be RR's protagonist, hitting reverse sweep sixes and targeting the deep mid wicket fence. But on the last ball of Chahal's spell, he hit the ball straight to deep mid-wicket and walked off for a 16-ball 29 - his best score of the season. Arshdeep bowled two very ordinary overs by his standards on either side of the death, as Ferreira and Dubey grew into the chase. RR had 58 balls remaining after a 14-run 15th over. Marco Jansen then got tonked by the impact substitute for a six and four in another heavy 15-run over. Ferguson gave away eight to push back a touch but Ferreira and Dubey laid into Arshdeep to take 17 against him in the next. In the 19th over, Ferreira showed even more strength against Ferguson, hitting a six into the top tier and two fours to put RR just two runs away from winning. He put the finishing touches with a six in the last over that also took him to a sensational 26-ball 52. During a 77-run stand, Dubey stood tall at the other end and finished with an impressive 31* off 12. Cooper Connolly, who took on both RR spinners Yash Raj Punja and Ravindra Jadeja, helped PBKS advance even though Prabhsimran reached a half-century. Connolly's cameo lasted only until the ninth over, but he exited with 30 off just 14. Shreyas Iyer looked shaky in a way that wasn't typical during his 27-ball stay for just 30 runs. Stoinis's brute force helped his team out and push them toward a big total. RR faced the brunt of that in the final three overs, where they conceded as many as 55 runs. No one was spared by Stoinis; Nandre Burger came back to take a few more hits and scored 1/59 in four overs. Archer got hit for a couple of sixes too, and then Stoinis sullied Brijesh Sharma's bowling figures. The young pacer finished with figures of 0-42 and only gave up 18 runs in the first three overs. At that point it looked like PBKS had revived just on time to give their bowlers enough. However, that was not the case that night.