Shreyas Iyer’s maiden IPL century took Punjab Kings to a comfortable seven-wicket win over Lucknow Super Giants with 12 balls remaining on Saturday.
The victory in Lucknow kept them in the reckoning for the IPL 2026 playoffs, but if Rajasthan Royals beat Mumbai Indians on Sunday afternoon, Punjab and KKR will both be knocked out.
The Knights will be in the hunt only if the Royals lose on Sunday. KKR (0.011) and
Punjab (0.309) will come into contention then with Shreyas’ team having a slight edge
because of a superior net run-rate.
KKR will have an outside chance to overtake Punjab if they score 200 and beat Delhi by 77 runs. Or if KKR are chasing, they would need to chase 180 in around 12-12.4 overs.
Chasing 197 on Saturday, Punjab lost two quick wickets as Mohammed Shami removed Priyansh Arya off the first ball and then Cooper Connolly in his next over. But Shreyas and Prabhsimran Singh added 140 off 76 balls to put them on course to victory.
While Shreyas’ unbeaten 101 off 51 balls included 11 fours and five sixes, Prabhsimran’s 69 comprised seven boundaries and two sixes.
Inglis shines
Batting first, Lucknow put out a solid batting display in the final group game for both sides.
The top-order floundered except for Josh Inglis. Skipper Rishabh Pant came to the team’s rescue with a 65-run stand with Inglis to bring them back into the match. Later Inglis was also involved in a 35-run stand off 19 balls with Abdul Samad.
Punjab bounced back in two of the last three overs — four runs in the 18th bowled by Marco Jansen and six in the 19th by Vijaykumar Vyshak.
