IPL Play of the Day: How 26.75 crore beat 27 crore in Lucknow captaincy clash

“When I went there was tension, it was Punjab.

Rishabh Pant said this just days after the mega auction of IPL 2025. Two IPL seasons later, Punjab Kings are still alive in the play-off race, Lucknow Super Giants are finishing with the wooden spoon and Saturday night at Ekana felt like a perfect explanation why.

LSG vs PBKS, IPL 2026: HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD

Because the crowd in Lucknow was not just a witness PBKS finally snapped their brutal six game losing streak and keep their playoff hopes alive with a seven-wicket win.

What they actually saw was Rs 26.75 crore, which completely surpassed Rs 27 crore.

Shreyas Iyer outshot, beat and outright outplayed Pant in Lucknow’s biggest game of the season, providing exactly the kind of lead the Punjab Kings thought they were buying in the mega auction.

If this match proved anything, it is probably that Punjab quietly won the IPL 2025 auction battle long before the points table started to confirm it.

One franchise spent huge money on a proven IPL winning captain who had previously dragged Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders deep into IPL seasons. The other was spending a little more on superstar chaos and hoping the rest would sort itself out later.

That was definitely not the case.

SARPANCH SPECIAL IN LUCK

Scorecard will remember Shreyas for his unbeaten 101 off 51 balls. Three sixes from Mohammed Shami, who was undoubtedly one of LSG’s best bowlers of the night. A towering pull over the cow horn to complete the chase and complete his maiden IPL hundred.

However, the Punjab captain had already started winning this game much earlier with his captaincy.

Because pretty much everything was in danger of PBKS going wrong with the ball at first.

Josh Inglis came out and immediately started treating Arshdeep Singh’s bowling as a power play. Four boundaries in the opening over. More punishments later. By the end of his spell, Arshdeep had conceded more than 50 runs, including 17 in the final over of the innings.

Imagine. Your top-class fast bowler is stunner all over the park in a must-win game.

Most of the captains there are panicking.

Shreyas actually calmed down.

The first big move came immediately after Arshdeep’s expensive start. Instead of going safe with Marc Jansen, Shreyas threw Azmatullah Omarzai straight into the attack.

First ball.

Goal.

Arshin Kulkarni went for a duck.

That was the tone of the evening.

Even when Jansen himself disappeared for 18 runs in his second over after bowling a superb first over, conceding just three runs, Shreyas resisted the temptation to force him through immediately. He kept Jansen almost completely back until the death instead of chasing wickets emotionally.

The reward came beautifully.

Jansen came back in the 16th over and gave away just 12 before producing a brilliant 18th over worth just four runs and a wicket. All of a sudden, LSG’s hopes of crossing 220 were completely dashed.

And then came the smartest move of the night.

Ekana did not turn into a square. It was hardly dramatic for the spinners. Yet Shreyas still aggressively trusted Yuzvendra Chahal as he understood the batter at the other end.

Pant has struggled with spin during IPL 2026. So Shreyas kept feeding him exactly that discomfort.

First came Chahal immediately after the powerplay and removed Ayush Badoni, whose 43 off 18 threatened to completely overturn the innings. Then in the 14th over Shreyas brought Chahal back, specifically when Pant was trying to rebuild next to Inglis.

Result?

Pants off for 26 out of 21.

That wicket completely broke Lucknow’s innings.

Even Shashank Singh’s overs were cleverly used as temporary fillers when Inglis threatened to explode late in the innings. And fittingly, Shashank himself removed Inglis.

Although Arshdeep leaked heavily and LSG smashed 66 in the powerplay, Punjab still restricted them to 196.

This does not happen by accident.

This happens when one captain reads the play faster than the other.

RISHABH PANT’S FUTURELESS LSG CHAPTER

And then there was Pant’s own batting.

After Ayush Badoni’s explosive 43 off 18 took Lucknow out of trouble, it was precisely the stage when Pant had to take the lead and let Josh Inglis play freely at the other end. Instead, Pant was once again stuck somewhere between anchor and aggressor, never fully committing to either role as he crawled to 26 off 21 balls before falling to Chahal.

Honestly, that was the story of Pant’s IPL 2026.

He finished the season with just 312 runs in 14 matches at a strike rate of around 138 and for a Rs 27 crore skipper, that is nowhere near the impact LSG imagined they were buying.

Add to that Nicholas Pooran’s prolonged slump in rhythm and suddenly Lucknow’s batting identity was changing every other week. Some nights Pant anchored, some nights he attacked recklessly, some nights the middle order shuffled again, and at the end of the season confusion simply consumed the entire campaign.

Lucknow finish with a wooden spoon.

And even Pant himself couldn’t fully hide his frustration after the match as he reflected on how tough the season had been.

“It’s tough. I still have to bite the bullet no matter what,” admitted Pant.

“It’s been a long season but at the same time we have to keep our heads up and we promise to come back stronger next year.”

HOW SHREYAS HIMSELF FINISHED THE WORK

Then came the chase.

Punjab were immediately in trouble again as Priyansh Arya fell first ball and Cooper Connolly soon followed, leaving PBKS at 22 for 2 chasing 197. For a side that came into the game with a brutal six-game losing streak, it had all the signs of another collapse waiting to happen.

That is where Shreyas, the batsman, stepped in just as Captain Shreyas had done earlier in the evening.

He slowed the game down initially, absorbing the pressure himself and giving Prabhsimran Singh time to settle on the slightly tricky Ekan surface. There was no panic in the way he approached the chase. No desperate attempt to immediately restore the desired rate. Instead, Shreyas simply kept the innings breathing until the pitch loosened up slightly under the lights and once it did, Punjab turned the game around completely.

Prabhsimran brought up his fifty in 26 balls, Shreyas got there in 33 and from then on the “Sarpanch” completely took over the village.

His next 51 runs came in just 18 deliveries.

The partnership with Prabhsimran eventually became 140 runs for the third wicket and took the game completely out of Lucknow’s hands.

Very few IPL hundreds achieve this perfectly.

Punjab have lost six matches in a row, their play-off hopes hanging in the balance and even their captain himself has not looked completely fluent in recent matches. Then suddenly, in the biggest match of his season, Shreyas Iyer put in exactly the kind of performance Punjab Kings had hoped for after spending Rs 26.75 crore to make him the second most expensive player in IPL history.

And perhaps the funnest part of it all.

The pants cost more.

But on the night that mattered most, Shreyas looked priceless.

– The end

Issued by:

Debodinna Chakraborty

Published on:

24 May 2026 06:00 IST

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