Rajasthan’s Royals overpowered Punjab’s lions, Preity Zinta’s team lost the first match of the season

New Delhi. Rajasthan Royals tasted their first defeat of IPL 2026 by defeating Punjab Kings in their own home. Shreyas Iyer’s team, which came to play the 40th match of IPL 2026 in Mullanpur, was defeated by Rajasthan Royals by 6 wickets. Batting first after losing the toss, Punjab scored 222 runs. Rajasthan Royals achieved the target of 223 runs in 19.2 overs by losing four wickets. With this, Rajasthan also made the record of the biggest successful run chase in Mullanpur. However, Punjab has not suffered any loss in the points table due to this defeat, because the team is still at the first position with 13 points. At the same time, Rajasthan Royals have reached third position with 12 points with their sixth win.

Yashasvi-Ferreira scored half-centuries for Rajasthan
Yashasvi Jaiswal and Donovan Ferreira played important roles in this victory of Rajasthan Royals. Both these batsmen batted brilliantly and scored half-centuries. Yashasvi scored 51 runs in 27 balls, while Ferreira returned after playing an unbeaten inning of 52 runs in 26 balls, leading the team to victory. The winning six came from Ferreira’s bat itself. Apart from these two, Vaibhav Suryavanshi gave a fast start to the team by playing an inning of 43 runs in 16 balls. Shubham Dubey also made an important contribution by playing a stormy not out inning of 31 runs in 12 balls.

Vaibhav gave a stormy start
Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Yashasvi Jaiswal gave a stormy start to the Royals while chasing the target. After opening the account with sixes and two fours on consecutive balls of Arshdeep Singh, Suryavanshi hit fours and two sixes on consecutive balls of Lockie Ferguson in the next over. Suryavanshi also hit a six in the next over of Arshdeep but on the next ball, while running backwards from mid-off, captain Shreyas Iyer caught him. Facing 16 balls, he hit five sixes and three fours.

Vaibhav Suryavanshi played the helicopter shot.

Jaiswal showed his attitude after Suryavanshi was out. In the same over of Arshdeep, he hit two fours and a six on consecutive balls and then hit two fours on Ferguson. Royals scored 84 runs for one wicket in the powerplay. Jaiswal completed the team’s century in the ninth over with a four off left-arm spinner Harpreet Brar. However, after scoring 16 runs in 20 balls, Dhruv Jurel was caught by Yansen off the ball of leg spinner Yuzvendra Chahal (three wickets for 36 runs). Captain Riyan Parag (29) opened the account with a four on Chahal and then hit a six on Brar with a reverse sweep. Jaiswal completed his half-century in 26 balls with four fours off Chahal but was caught by Suryansh Shedge on the next ball. Parag also hit sixes and fours on Chahal’s consecutive balls but was caught by Shedge at deep midwicket in the same over.

58 runs were needed in 5 overs
Royals needed 58 runs to win in the last five overs. Shubham Dubey increased the run rate with sixes and fours on consecutive balls from Yansen but only eight runs were scored in Ferguson’s next over. Ferreira hit a six and a four on consecutive balls of Arshdeep in the 18th over, while Dubey also hit a six on the last ball, due to which Royals needed 18 runs in the last over. Ferreira then gave the Royals the upper hand on Ferguson with two fours and a six and then completed a half-century in 26 balls with a six on Yansen and led the team to victory. With this six, Rajasthan’s score became 228/4.

Prabhsimran Singh made fifty in 35 balls.

Prabhsimran-Stoinis scored fifty for Punjab
Earlier, putting into bat, Punjab Kings made a good start by scoring 65 runs for one wicket in the powerplay. Prabhasimran opened the account with a four on Jofra Archer while Priyansh Arya (29) hit three fours and a six on consecutive balls of Berger. Priyansh also hit two fours on Archer in the next over but then gave an easy catch to Burger. Connolly welcomed Yash with two consecutive sixes and then delivered Ravindra Jadeja’s ball to the audience. However, Connolly, while trying to play a big shot in Yash’s next over, gave an easy catch to Donovan Ferreira at long off. Prabhasimran took the team’s score beyond 100 runs in the ninth over with a four off Yash and then completed his fourth half-century of the current season in 35 balls with a single off Jadeja’s ball.

Iyer also hit a six off Yash after a slow start, but Prabhasimran waved the leg spinner’s ball in the air and gave an easy catch to captain Ryan Parag. Marcus Stoinis hit a six and a four on consecutive balls of Burger in the 18th over, but Iyer waved the ball in the air and was caught by wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel. Stoinis hit two consecutive sixes on Archer in the next over and then in the last over of the innings, he completed his half-century in 20 balls with three fours and two sixes on consecutive balls of Brijesh Sharma and also took the team’s score beyond 200 runs. After this defeat, Punjab team would like to return to the winning track.