By Prakash Nair 
New Chandigarh, April 11: When Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head are both having a good day at the same time, it is not cricket anymore. It is something closer to assault.
That is exactly what happened in Mullanpur on Saturday afternoon. The first six overs of the Sunrisers Hyderabad innings were so violent, so one-sided, so completely unfair on PBKS bowlers that the people sitting in the stands probably felt a little sorry for Arshdeep Singh. He is one of the best death bowlers in the world. On Saturday, in the powerplay, he had no answers.
105 runs. Six overs. Zero wickets.
And yet, Punjab Kings won. By six wickets. With seven balls left. Chasing 220 like it was a Sunday morning warm-up.
How? That is what this is about.
First, the Carnage
Abhishek Sharma bats like he has a personal problem with the cricket ball. The man does not defend. He does not nudge. He hits. And on Saturday, he hit 74 runs off 28 deliveries, eight sixes, five fours, before anyone could stop him. Travis Head, who opens alongside him and is no stranger to doing damage himself, chipped in with 38 off 23.
Together, they were just impossible to bowl at.
Arshdeep Singh got hit. Marco Jansen got hit harder. By the time the sixth over ended, SRH had 105 on the board and not a single wicket had fallen. That is the third-highest powerplay score in IPL history. At that point, half the Punjab fans in the ground had probably accepted a heavy defeat and started thinking about the drive home.
What changed things was a man called Shashank Singh.
One Over. Two Wickets. Game Changes.
Shashank is not the flashiest name in cricket. He does not bowl rockets. He is not going to trend on social media for his action or his pace. But he reads a game beautifully, and when Shreyas Iyer threw him the ball mid-innings with SRH threatening to go absolutely berserk, he did exactly what was needed.
He got Abhishek Sharma out. Then Travis Head. Same over.
Just like that, 105 for none became 122 for 2. Two set batters, two wickets, one over. The momentum that SRH had built up over six overs was not gone entirely, but it had cracked badly. Their innings never really recovered the same rhythm after that.
Ishan Kishan tried to rebuild. A freakish one-handed catch by Marco Jansen near the boundary ended his knock at 27. Aniket Verma ran himself out, which is the kind of thing that happens when an innings starts losing its shape. Heinrich Klaasen hung around for 39 off 33, which is fine, but Klaasen on a normal day should be doing far more damage than that.
Arshdeep came back in the death and took two more. SRH finished at 219 for 6.
A good score. A big score. But not the 260 it was threatening to be. And that difference those 40-odd runs that Shashank’s intervention saved ended up being the difference between a contest and a stroll.
Then Punjab Just Did What Punjab Do
Here is the thing about this Punjab Kings side. They bat without fear. There is no nervy accumulation, no careful plan to see off the new ball and reassess. Their openers come out and they go after it from ball one, and if it works, it works magnificently.
On Saturday, it worked magnificently.
Priyansh Arya hit the first ball he faced for a four. That sort of set the tone. By the time he was dismissed in the seventh over by left-arm spinner Shivang Kumar, he had scored 57 runs off 20 balls. Fifty off 16 of those balls, the fastest half-century of his IPL career. Five sixes, five fours. Just completely outrageous batting.
Prabhsimran Singh at the other end was not too far behind. He reached his fifty off 25 balls, finished with 51, and together the two put on 99 runs for the first wicket. In the powerplay alone, Punjab had scored 93 without losing a wicket.
SRH had just done the same thing to Punjab. Punjab had just done it back. The game was, at that point, even.
Shivang Kumar Tried. He Really Did.
Give credit to Shivang Kumar. The SRH spinner bowled beautifully through the middle overs and gave his side a genuine chance. He removed Arya, then Prabhsimran, then Cooper Connolly, three wickets in three overs and suddenly Punjab were 122 for 3 with a run-a-ball required and the match feeling a lot tighter than it had ten minutes earlier.
That is when Shreyas Iyer decided he had seen enough.
Iyer was just a different class
Nine balls. That is how long it took Iyer to play himself in properly. Nine balls of just watching, running between wickets, and refusing to play a rash shot. Most batters chasing 220 with the match in the balance would be in a hurry. Iyer was not in a hurry. He looked like a man who already knew how the story was going to end.
After those nine balls, he started hitting. And once he started, he did not stop.
He finished on 69 not out off 33 balls. Five fours, one six. A partnership of 69 with Nehal Wadhera steadied things completely, and when Wadhera got out, Shashank Singh walked in and put the finishing touches on with 16 off 9 balls. Job done in the 19th over itself.
Punjab Kings 223 for 4. Second biggest successful chase in the franchise’s entire IPL history.
Simple. Clinical. Controlled.
What Punjab has that most teams do not
There is a certain confidence running through this Punjab Kings side that feels different from previous seasons. They have been good before. They reached the final last year. But this version feels more settled, like a team that genuinely backs itself regardless of the situation.
Part of that is having Shreyas Iyer as captain. He is experienced, calm, and, as Saturday showed, capable of winning a match with the bat when the team needs it. He does not panic, and he does not let his team panic either. That tone at the top matters more than people give it credit for.
Their openers are also just brutally effective right now. Three wins from four completed games, big net run rate, no signs of slowing down.
Sunrisers Have a Problem, and They Know It
Three losses in four games. That is where SRH find themselves after Saturday, and the manner of those defeats is what should concern them more than the results themselves.
When Abhishek and Head fire, this team can put up a score against anyone. But they have now twice put up a massive powerplay total and still lost the game. The middle overs batting has not been consistent enough. The death bowling has been leaking runs at a rate that bigger sides will absolutely target. And without Pat Cummins who leads this team in a way that is hard to replace Ishan Kishan is doing his best but the team is missing a steadying hand.
The fixes exist. But IPL 2026 is already moving fast, and SRH do not have many more games to waste before the points table makes the situation uncomfortable.
Bottom Line
Punjab Kings are the real deal this season. They bowl competitively, they field sharply, and they bat like they have nothing to fear. Shreyas Iyer is leading from the front in the most literal sense walking in under pressure and making the game look easy.
220 to chase? Seven balls to spare? Three wins in the bag?
This Punjab side is not messing around.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
