Table of Contents

There will be games this IPL season that are remembered for weeks. This one will be remembered for years. Punjab Kings walked into the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Saturday evening, looked at a target of 265, and chased it down with seven balls to spare.

The highest successful run chase in IPL history, broken by the same team that set the previous record two years ago against KKR. A man scored 152 off 67 balls and still ended up on the losing side. If you needed any further evidence that T20 cricket in 2026 has moved into territory that would have seemed completely fictional a decade ago, here it is, written in the scorecard in permanent ink.

DC vs PBKS: KL Rahul's 152 that should have won any other game

Let's start with what DC did, because it deserves its own space before we get to what happened next. KL Rahul walked in after Pathum Nissanka fell for 11 in the third over and proceeded to play one of the most dominant innings this competition has ever seen.

One hundred and fifty-two runs off 67 balls. Sixteen fours, nine sixes, a strike rate of 226. KL Rahul did not give a single chance (actually he gave two chances), he did not look remotely uncomfortable at any stage, and he shared a 220-run partnership for the second wicket with Nitish Rana, who himself scored 91 off 44 balls, that turned a decent powerplay into something monstrous.

DC finished on 264 for 2, their highest ever IPL total, posting on a day where the temperature at the Arun Jaitley Stadium touched 41 degrees Celsius. In any other game, in any other era, 264 for 2 is a total you defend. On Saturday evening in Delhi, it was not enough. Not even close.

DC vs PBKS: Prabhsimran Singh and the powerplay that ended the contest before it began

PBKS needed 265 off 20 overs and their openers decided the best response was to make the chase look comfortable before DC had processed what was happening.

Prabhsimran Singh scored 71 off 26 balls, 71 runs, 26 balls, nine fours and five sixes, a strike rate of 292. He reached his fifty off 18 balls. By the time the powerplay ended, PBKS had 116 on the board without losing a wicket, and the required run rate for the remaining 14 overs had already been made to look manageable.

Singh was eventually dismissed for 76 but the damage was done. Priyansh Arya contributed a breezy 43 at the other end and when both PBKS openers fell within two overs of each other, PBKS needed 139 off 13 overs with eight wickets in hand. At this ground, on this evening, that was not a chase. That was a formality.

Also READ: KL Rahul hits Delhi Capitals' fastest IPL century in just 47 balls vs Punjab Kings

DC vs PBKS: Shreyas Iyer anchors the chase for Punjab Kings as Karun Nair hands PBKS the game twice

Shreyas Iyer walked in and batted the way a table-topping captain should, composed, clear, and utterly ruthless when the opportunity presented itself. He made 71 off 36 balls for PBKS, hitting seven sixes along the way, and was part of consecutive fifty-plus partnerships with Nehal Wadhera and Shashank Singh that made sure PBKS never let the required rate creep back into dangerous territory.

But the subplot that DC will spend a very long time trying to forget belongs to Karun Nair. He dropped Iyer in the 15th over, a catchable chance, the kind that ends chases, and then dropped him again in the very next over. Iyer was on 28 when the first chance went down. He finished on 71 not out for PBKS. That is the brutal arithmetic of dropped catches in high-scoring games, and DC paid every single run of the price.

DC vs PBKS: What this means and where fans go from here

PBKS have now broken the record for the highest successful run chase in IPL history, twice, both times themselves, 2024 against KKR and now 2026 against DC. PBKS are first on the points table, they are playing with the swagger of a team that genuinely believes no total is beyond them, and they are doing it with a batting lineup that treats respect for opposition bowlers as an optional extra

Shreyas Iyer, the skipper of PBKS, smiled at the post-match presentation and you understood why, his team just chased 265 with seven balls remaining, at a venue where the heat was trying to kill everyone involved, and made it look like a training exercise. A bloke scored 152 off 67 balls and lost.

What is a safe score against these guys? Right now, honestly, nobody knows.