HYDERABAD: It was a tale of two debutants and how they sent Rajasthan Royals to their first defeat in IPL-2026 on Monday.Vidarbha’s Praful Hinge (4/34) and Bihar’s Sakib Hussain (4/24), the former 24 and the latter 21, could not have asked for a better start to their IPL careers. When Rajasthan Royals committed hara-kiri, they did everything they do in steam and hit hard lengths. The attitude with which they overhauled RCB 201/8 a few days ago was clearly missing and poor shot selection added to their woes in a 57-run defeat.Pant, one of the two changes made by SRH, struck with the second, fourth and sixth deliveries of the first over to break the back of the visiting side. Royals seemed to lack the stomach for a fight after Vaibhav Sooryavanshi edged an intended hit into the hands of keeper Salil Arora off the first ball he faced. Dhruv Jurel lasted one delivery and so did debutant Lhuan-dre Pretorius.Yashasvi Jaiswal directed ‘Impact Player’ Hussain – who came in for Travis Head – straight to Nitish Reddy at third and when skipper Riyan Parag fell to Hinge, Royals lost half their team for a paltry nine runs in the third over.Despite a spirited effort from Donovan Ferreira (69; 44b, 7×4, 3×6) and Ravindra Jadeja (45; 32b, 5×4) and their partnership of 118 runs (72b) for the sixth wicket, the Royals needed 159, 146 off the last 10.89.Sunrisers Hyderabad’s total of 216/6, largely thanks to Ishan Kishan, proved beyond them in a jersey that was used for the first time at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. Kishan (91; 44b, 8×4, 6×6) may have lost his fifth toss in a row, but the diminutive SRH skipper hardly put a foot wrong on the day.Royals’ joy at Jofra Archer dismissing Abhishek Sharma for his seventh duck on the first delivery of the match was short lived as Kishan stepped in to repair the early damage.
