The Punjab Kings kept winning in IPL 2026, beating the Lucknow Super Giants by 54 runs on Sunday.

In a match where they had to defend a high score of 254 runs, Marco Jansen took 2 wickets for 37 runs. Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Vijaykumar Vyshak each took 1 wicket. This helped PBKS stay at the top of the points table.

Openers Priyansh Arya (93 runs from 37 balls) and Australian player Cooper Connolly (87 runs from 46 balls) helped set a big target for the other team with their quick scoring. The PBKS bowlers did a good job of keeping LSG to 200 runs for 5 wickets, even though they made some mistakes in the field towards the end.

Trying to chase down 255 runs was always going to be tough for LSG. They decided to do it with a new opening pair: Mitchell Marsh and Ayush Badoni. The two players put up a good partnership, scoring 61 runs together, but it wasn’t enough to reach the high target they needed.

Even though Marsh, Rishabh Pant, and Aiden Markram all scored around 40 runs, they couldn’t turn it into a big score that would have made PBKS worried. After the big defeat, LSG has lost three games in a row and is now in eighth place, with only Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians below them.

LSG’s game starting with Badoni and Marsh went well at first. They hit 10 boundaries and scored more than fifty runs together. However, Vyshak ended their partnership on the last ball of the powerplay by tricking Badoni with a slow ball that was easily caught by a fielder in the middle of the field.

Marsh and Pant tried to boost their team’s energy, with the LSG captain hitting Jansen for two sixes in a row. When Chahal came into the game, things got tougher for the batting team. They scored 20 runs from overs 9 to 11, but Chahal ended the dangerous second-wicket partnership when Marsh hit a high ball straight to the fielder at long-on.

Pant kept going strong by hitting Chahal for back-to-back sixes in the 12th over. However, he got out quickly for 43 runs when he tried to hit a wide ball from Arshdeep and ended up getting caught. The decision was confirmed by UltraEdge.

The chase basically stopped there when Nicholas Pooran did not do well again and got out after scoring just nine runs. He misplayed a slow pitch from Jansen and hit it to a fielder in the outfield.

Markram (42) and Mukul Choudhary (21 not out) thrilled the crowd with several big hits, helped by three catches missed by the PBKS players in the last three overs. However, it was clear that the home team was going to win.

Brief Scores:
Punjab Kings 254/7 in 20 overs (Priyansh Arya 93, Cooper Connolly 87; Prince Yadav 2-25, M Siddharth 2-35)
Lucknow Super Giants 200/5 in 20 overs (Rishabh Pant 43, Aiden Markram 42; Marco Jansen 2-37, Vijaykumar Vyshak 1-30)