Indian Premier League: Punjab Kings Remain Top After Record-Breaking Victory Over DC

by Devesh Jaganath

image Indian Premier League: Punjab Kings Remain Top After Record-Breaking Victory Over DC
The first half of the 2026 Indian Premier League is now in the books, and the Punjab Kings continue to reaffirm their status as the team to beat in this year’s competition. PBKS pulled three points clear at the top of the standings on Saturday by producing a world record performance against the Delhi Capitals.
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PBKS chase down world-record-shattering 264/2 against Delhi 

After losing the 2025 Indian Premier League final, many cricket fans wondered if the Punjab Kings would be able to rally from that heartbreak this year, but after the first half of the 2026 edition, they have certainly put those questions to bed. 

Seven games into the tournament, and PBKS is the only team yet to taste defeat, winning six of their matches, with their only dropped points coming by way of a no-result against the Kolkata Knight Riders in their third match back on April 6, when rain only permitted 3.5 overs of play. 

Since then, the Kings have confirmed our IPL predictions by rattling off four wins on the bounce, beating SRH by six wickets, MI by seven wickets, LSG by 54 runs, and, most recently, the Delhi Capitals by six wickets in a historic run chase of 264/2 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Saturday afternoon. 

PBKS’ victory over DC now stands as the highest successful run-chase in the history of T20 cricket!

It was a match for the ages, which started with KL Rahul scoring a stunning unbeaten 152 - the highest score by an Indian player ever in the IPL. His knock powered the Capitals to the mammoth total and seemingly set the Kings up for their first loss of the competition. 

However, the Punjab franchise showed their intent from the outset with the bat. Priyansh Arya smashed a powerful 43 runs off 17 deliveries, while his opening partner Prabhsimran Singh went on to score 76 off just 26 balls before Shreyas Iyer’s masterful 71 from 36 balls got the side over the line. 

Nehal Wadhera and Shashank Singh both played important innings at the death, as last season’s runners-up reached the target with seven balls to spare, surpassing their own previous record for the highest run chase in T20 cricket of 262/2 against KKR in IPL 2024. 

Top Five Highest All-T20 Run Chases

  1. 265/5 - Punjab Kings (PBKS) chased down 264/2 against Delhi Capitals in IPL 2026 (Delhi)
  2. 262/2 - Punjab Kings (PBKS) chased down 261/6 against Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2024 (Kolkata)
  3. 259/4 - South Africa chased down 258/5 against West Indies in 2023 (Centurion)
  4. 246/4 - Bulgaria chased down 242/4 against Serbia in 2022 (Sofia)
  5. 245/5 - Australia chased down 243/6 against New Zealand in 2018 (Auckland)

 

Batters Continue to Push Scoring Limits in IPL 2026

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We have already seen a few special knocks in this season’s IPL, but arguably the best two came on Saturday from KL Rahul in the aforementioned defeat to the Punjab Kings on Saturday, and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s explosive century for the Rajasthan Royals against SRH earlier the same day. 

Rahul’s ton was his sixth in the IPL and places him third - alongside Chris Gayle - among players with the most hundreds in the competition. Only Virat Kohli (8) and Jos Buttler (7) have recorded more three-figure innings than Rahul in the competition’s history. 

Additionally, that knock of 152* also stands as the third-highest ever in the IPL, after Gayle's 175* against the Pune Warriors for RCB in 2013, and Brendon McCullum’s 158* during his time with KKR in 2008 against the Royal Challengers in Bengaluru. 

Meanwhile, Sooryavanshi continues to rewrite the belief of what is possible in cricket. The 15-year-old starlet set the stage on fire on Saturday when he blasted 103 runs off just 37 deliveries, including 12 sixes and 5 fours, to record his second hundred of the tournament. 

Across his IPL career, the teenage sensation has only faced 274 balls but has already struck an incredible 56 sixes and 49 fours. His two tons also sit among the fastest in IPL history, coming off 35 and 36 deliveries, only behind Gayle’s 30-ball record.