Rajasthan Royals beat Chennai Super Kings by 8 wickets
The third match of IPL 2026 was played on Monday between the Rajasthan Royals and the Chennai Super Kings in Guwahati. In that clash, Rajasthan Royals successfully clinched victory by eight wickets, with 47 balls to spare. While chasing the target of 128 runs set by the opposition, Vaibhav Suryavanshi was in sublime form with the bat.
Opening the innings, he played a blistering knock of 52 runs—a half-century—off just 17 balls, striking at a rate of 305.88. While playing his blistering innings, he smashed four boundaries and five magnificent sixes. Apart from Vaibhav, Yashasvi Jaiswal contributed an unbeaten 38 runs off 36 balls, while Dhruv Jurel added 18 runs off 9 balls. Captain Riyan Parag also remained unbeaten, scoring 14 runs off 11 balls.
Rajasthan and Chennai, finished at the bottom of the points table last season. They swapped their star players, Ravindra Jadeja and Sanju Samson, prior to the current season. Jadeja’s return to Rajasthan proved successful, as he claimed two wickets in his very first over. Conversely, Samson, a hero of India’s T20 World Cup triumph, failed to make an impact on his debut for the Chennai Super Kings.
Punjab Kings stronger than last season: Ricky Ponting
Punjab Kings will begin their Indian Premier League 2026 (IPL 2026) campaign against Gujarat Titans (GT) at their home ground, the New International Stadium in New Chandigarh, on Tuesday. Punjab head coach Ricky Ponting expressed confidence in a stronger and more improved team for the new season ahead of the match against GT. Ponting stressed that even though the team topped the table last season, which was a good thing, the team is starting this new campaign with a new mindset.
Ponting said, “I don’t think there are too many gaps now. I saw it last year. I think I saw it was really well-balanced last year. I think, once again, if you look at our entire squad make-up, we’ve got the players that we want in certain roles, but we’ve also got a back-up player for most of those players right the way down to our 25th player. So I just think overall, we should be stronger.”
Jamie Overton broke MS Dhoni’s record
Jamie Overton smashed 43 runs off just 36 balls, hitting 2 sixes and 2 fours, in the match against Rajasthan Royals on Monday. His team CSK was struggling at 82 for 8 after 12.5 overs, but Overton’s gutsy knock dragged them to 127 by the end. Before this, Mahendra Singh Dhoni held the record as he scored an unbeaten 37 while batting at number 8 for Chennai against Delhi Capitals in Visakhapatnam earlier in 2024.
Overton also built a 33-run stand for the 10th wicket alongside Anshul Kamboj. That’s the joint second-highest last-wicket partnership in IPL history. Pat Cummins and Vijaykant Vyaskant also put together 33 runs for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Kolkata Knight Riders in 2024. The record belongs to Shikhar Dhawan and Mohit Rathi, who added an unbeaten 55 for Punjab Kings versus Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2023.
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