KL Rahul ton in vain as Punjab Kings down Delhi Capitals in record run chase

A magnificent, career-best innings of 152 not out from KL Rahul led the Delhi Capitals to their highest IPL score – and the seventh highest ever – reaching an eye-popping 264 for two, but it wasn’t enough for victory as the log-leaders Punjab Kings produced the highest successful run chase in history to win an extraordinary Tata IPL match at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Saturday afternoon.

Punjab openers Priyansh Arya (43 from 17 balls) and Prabhsimran Singh (76 from 26) responded to the daunting target by posting 116 in the Power Play as Delhi’s bowlers collapsed in even more dramatic fashion than Punjab’s had earlier in the day.

The openers smashed five sixes apiece and 11 fours between them, setting up captain Shreyas Iyer to take the team home with a scintillating 71* from just 36 deliveries with three fours and seven maximums. The hardest working people at the venue were the scorers and statisticians battling to keep up with records being broken. The record chase was achieved, bewilderingly, with seven balls to spare.

Earlier, Rahul was in astonishing form, facing just 67 deliveries and collecting 16 fours and nine sixes in the third-highest individual score of all time behind just Chris Gayle’s 175* in 2013 and Brendan McCullum’s 158 in the inaugural IPL fixture in 2008.

By the final quarter of the innings, Rahul was premeditating every shot and hitting boundaries seemingly at will as the Punjab bowling attack wilted under the assault to concede 109 runs from the last five overs. It was a dreadful day for the log-leading Kings, who dropped four catches and produced a miserably inconsistent bowling performance with a rash of full tosses.

Left-hander Nitish Rana was barely behind Rahul with a searing 91 from 44 balls with 11 fours and four sixes, sharing a second-wicket stand of 220 with Rahul, the second-highest for any wicket in the tournament, before holing to deep midwicket within sight of his own century.

HIGHEST IPL PARTNERSHIPS:

229 - AB de Villiers & Virat Kohli vs GL, Bengaluru, 2016

220 - KL Rahul & Nitish Rana vs PBKS, Delhi, 2026

215* - AB de Villiers & Virat Kohli vs MI, Mumbai, 2015

210* - KL Rahul & Quinton de Kock vs KKR, Mumbai, 2022

210 - Sai Sudharsan & Shubman Gill vs CSK, Ahmedabad, 2024

Australian Xavier Bartlett (0-69) bore the brunt of the punishment while Marco Jansen (0-45) and wrist-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal (0-42) escaped relatively unscathed, given the circumstances.

But Delhi’s bowlers and fielding were even more hapless than Punjab, with openers Mukesh Kumar (3-0-55-0) and Auqib Nabi (2-0-41-0) increasingly incapable of landing the ball anywhere near their intended destination – and being increasingly deposited into the stands.

Punjab consequently remain the only unbeaten team with a sixth win and a washout from their seven games and enjoy a three-point lead at the top with 13, ahead of Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Rajasthan Royals, who have 10 points apiece.

DELHI CAPITALS: Pathum Nissanka, KL Rahul (wkt), Sameer Rizvi, Axar Patel (captain), Nitish Rana, Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Kuldeep Yadav, T.Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar

Impact subs: Vipraj Nigam, Karun Nair, Dushmantha Chameera, Ashutosh Sharma, Auqib Nabi Dar

PUNJAB KINGS: Prabhsimran Singh (wkt), Priyanch Arya, Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal

Impact subs: Nehal Wadhera, Harpreet Brar, Suryanth Shedge, Yash Thakur, Vishnu Vinod