“There was a tension as I walked, that was Punjab.”
Rishabh Pant had said that just days after the IPL 2025 mega auction. Two IPL seasons later, Punjab Kings are still alive in the playoffs race, Lucknow Super Giants are finishing with the wooden spoon, and Saturday night at Ekana felt like the perfect explanation why.
LSG vs PBKS, IPL 2026: HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD
Because the crowd in Lucknow did not just witness PBKS finally snapping their brutal six-match losing streak and keeping their playoffs hopes alive with a seven-wicket win.
What they really saw was Rs 26.75 crore thoroughly outbidding Rs 27 crore.
Shreyas Iyer outcaptained, outbatted and outright outclassed Pant in Lucknow’s biggest game of the season, delivering the exact kind of leadership Punjab Kings thought they were buying at 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 confirming it.
One franchise spent huge money on a proven IPL-winning captain who had already dragged Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders deep into IPL seasons before. The other spent slightly more on superstar chaos and hoped the rest would somehow settle itself later.
That has certainly not been the case.
A SARPANCH SPECIAL IN LUCKNOW
The scorecard will remember Shreyas for his unbeaten 101 off 51 balls. The three sixes off Mohammed Shami, who was undoubtedly one of LSG’s best bowlers of the night. The towering slog over cow corner to finish the chase and complete his maiden IPL hundred.
But Punjab’s captain had already started winning this game much earlier with his captaincy.
Because almost everything initially threatened to go wrong for PBKS with the ball.
Josh Inglis walked out and instantly started treating Arshdeep Singh’s bowling like a powerplay net session. Four boundaries in the opening over. Later, more punishment. By the end, Arshdeep had leaked more than 50 runs in his spell, including 17 in the final over of the innings.
Imagine. Your premier fast bowler is getting smacked all around the park in a must-win game.
Most captains panic there.
Shreyas actually became calmer.
The first big move came immediately after Arshdeep’s expensive start. Instead of going safe with Marco Jansen, Shreyas threw Azmatullah Omarzai straight into the attack.
First ball.
Wicket.
Arshin Kulkarni gone 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, conceding just three runs, Shreyas resisted the temptation to force him through immediately. He held Jansen back almost entirely till the death overs instead of chasing wickets emotionally.
The reward came beautifully.
Jansen returned in the 16th over and gave away only 12 before executing a brilliant 18th over worth just four runs and a wicket. Suddenly, LSG’s hopes of crossing 220 vanished completely.
And then came the smartest move of the night.
Ekana was not turning square. There was barely any dramatic grip for spinners. Yet Shreyas still trusted Yuzvendra Chahal aggressively because he understood the batter standing at the other end.
Pant had struggled badly against spin throughout IPL 2026. So Shreyas kept feeding him exactly that discomfort.
First, Chahal came immediately after the powerplay and removed Ayush Badoni, whose 43 off 18 had threatened to completely flip the innings. Then in the 14th over, Shreyas brought Chahal back specifically when Pant was trying to rebuild alongside Inglis.
Result?
Pant gone for 26 off 21.
That wicket completely punctured Lucknow’s innings.
Even Shashank Singh’s overs were used cleverly as temporary fillers when Inglis threatened to explode late in the innings. And fittingly, Shashank himself removed Inglis.
Despite Arshdeep leaking heavily and LSG smashing 66 in the powerplay, Punjab still restricted them to 196.
That does not happen accidentally.
That happens when one captain is reading the game quicker than the other.
RISHABH PANT’S CLUELESS LSG CHAPTER
And then there was Pant’s own batting.
After Ayush Badoni’s explosive 43 off 18 had dragged Lucknow out of trouble, this was the exact phase where Pant needed to take charge and let Josh Inglis play freely at the other end. Instead, Pant once again got 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 has been the story of Pant’s IPL 2026.
He finished the season with just 312 runs in 14 games at a strike rate around 138 and for a Rs 27 crore captain, that is nowhere near the impact LSG imagined they were buying.
Add to that Nicholas Pooran’s prolonged dip in rhythm and suddenly Lucknow’s batting identity kept changing every other week. Some nights Pant anchored, some nights he attacked recklessly, some nights the middle-order shuffled again, and by the end of the season the confusion simply swallowed the entire campaign.
Lucknow finish with the wooden spoon.
And even Pant himself could not fully hide the frustration after the match while reflecting on how difficult the season had been.
“It’s a tough one. Still have to bite the bullet regardless of anything,” Pant admitted.
“It’s been a long season but at the same time, just keeping our head high, and we promise to come back stronger next year.”
HOW SHREYAS FINISHED THE JOB HIMSELF
Then came the chase.
Punjab were immediately in trouble again as Priyansh Arya fell first ball and Cooper Connolly followed soon after, leaving PBKS at 22 for 2 in a chase of 197. For a side carrying a brutal six-match losing streak into the game, this had every possible sign of another collapse waiting to happen.
That is where Shreyas the batter stepped in exactly the way Shreyas the captain already had earlier in the evening.
He slowed the game down initially, absorbed the pressure himself and allowed Prabhsimran Singh time to settle on a slightly tricky Ekana surface. There was no panic in the way he approached the chase. No desperate attempt to recover the required rate immediately. Instead, Shreyas simply kept the innings breathing till the pitch eased slightly under lights and once that happened, Punjab completely flipped the game.
Prabhsimran brought up his fifty in 26 balls, Shreyas got there in 33, and from that point onwards 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 completely ripped the game away from Lucknow’s hands.
Very few IPL hundreds arrive this perfectly.
Punjab had lost six straight matches, their playoff hopes were hanging by a thread and even their captain himself had not looked fully fluent in recent games. Then suddenly, in the biggest match of their season, Shreyas Iyer produced exactly the kind of performance Punjab Kings spent Rs 26.75 crore hoping for when they made him the second-most expensive player in IPL history.
And maybe that is the funniest part of all this.
Pant cost more.
But on the night that mattered most, Shreyas looked priceless.
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