IPL 2026: Arya and Shreyas star as Kings breach CSK’s fortress again

Punjab are the Kings of 200-plus chases in the IPL. They’d done it eight times before Friday night, and they did it again as Priyansh Arya and Shreyas Iyer laid waste to the Chennai Super Kings bowling attack.

Arya had 33 off nine when the PBKS fifty came up in the fourth over of their innings. Shreyas was 4 off 5 before accelerating to a 26-ball fifty.

CSK are now winless after two games and what will worry them is that they were outplayed in conditions that enhance their strength. They have a strong top five.

Pitches like this one, which allow them to hit through the line, makes them stronger. But the 209 for 5 they put up didn’t cover for the weakness in their bowling.

PBKS’ win was their fourth in a row against CSK at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

Mhatre on song

An 18-year-old who came into a struggling team mid-season last year and emerged as one of their best players might have had reason to believe he had established himself.

But with the arrival of Sanju Samson, Ayush Mhatre was bumped down from opener to No. 3. Samson hasn’t been able to get going, falling for two single-digit scores, but the knock-on effect that had on Friday was that Mhatre was out there in the powerplay.

And with the field up, he had the liberty to play his shots, and some of them were just so good, including a forehand smash across the line against Vyshak Vijaykumar.

Mhatre was dismissed on the pull shot in the first game of CSK’s season. In the lead-up to this one, Mike Hussey with the whanger kept feeding him short balls and he kept working on the swivel-pull. That work paid off.

The third boundary he hit – of three back-to-back – was a confident swivel-pull – and Mhatre deserves more credit for it because the first two were full balls that he had put away over mid-on to engineer that change in length from Xavier Bartlett.

Later, when the field spread and the PBKS bowlers were having success keeping others quiet with wide yorkers – Shivam Dube was 14 off 14 at one point – Mhatre dug one out for a single. That was 10.2.

By 10.5, he’d found a solution for a ball the bowler thought was a banker – bringing the bat down as he had done before but this time opening the face to beat short third and backward point to their right and deep point to the left. It was a shot that combined quick thinking with perfect timing.

Mhatre was dropped on 59 and 67 and eventually fell for 73 off 43. At the time, the other end had contributed 38 off 32. The extras chipped in with 12.

Arya rises

PBKS assistant coach Brad Haddin recalled how Arya had wowed the whole coaching staff when he started batting in the camp ahead of IPL 2025.

The bat speed in particular was unbelievable. But what really impressed Haddin was that when Arya joined the team ahead of this season, he had improved on his strengths. He had downed CSK with a century last year.

He needed just 11 balls to down them this year. The shots were pure too. There was an on-the-up cover drive for four with zero follow-through that told CSK what they were giving him just wasn’t good enough. PBKS brought up their fifty in the fourth over. They downed more than 30% of the target inside the powerplay.

Shreyas smash

CSK’s bowlers created a little bit of pressure between the ninth and 12th overs when they were gifted Prabhsimran Singh’s wicket through a run-out and Cooper Connolly’s off a full-toss. At the start of the 13th over, PBKS’ chances of victory, according to the ESPNcricinfo forecaster, was 45%.

CSK brought on Rahul Chahar to see if they could push their advantage. Shreyas whacked him for two sixes, moved from 4 off 5 to 19 off 10. PBKS’ chances of winning after those six balls was up at 65%.

It didn’t take long for that figure to hit 100. Shreyas helped himself to a 26-ball fifty. (ESPNcricinfo)