Sunrisers Hyderabad made Punjab Kings pay big for their fielding errors as the Pat Cummins-led side defeated Shreyas Iyer's team in the 49th match of the Indian Premier League 2026. SRH made a strong 235/4 as their batters seem to have had nine lives with PBKS dropping several chances. The Sunrisers bowlers backed things well as they won by 33 runs despite Cooper Connolly's historic hundred.
SRH had never lost out after putting up a 220-plus total in the IPL, having won all of their previous 10 games. They did just that once again. The bowlers set the things up well as SRH fielders were on top in the fielding, something which the PBKS players lacked once again.
SRH bowlers jolt PBKS
Cummins began the proceedings as he removed Priyansh Arya in the first over, brilliantly caught by Eshan Malinga at deep square leg. Nitish Reddy struck on the first ball of the second over as he got Prabhsimran Singh with Cummins taking a stellar catch running backwards from cover. Shreyas Iyer was soon removed by Malinga.
There was some fight from Connolly and Marcus Stoinis for the fourth wicket, but that didn't last long as Stoinis was dismissed by Shivang Kumar. The Kings kept losing wickets with not much from any batter, apart from Connolly.
Connolly stars with record-breaking ton
Connolly was top-class once again as he smashed a record-breaking century. At 22 years and 257 days old, Connolly has now become the youngest overseas player to hit a ton in the Indian cash-rich league. While everyone around him fell, he went on to make an unbeaten 107 from 59 balls to mitigate the losing margin.
PBKS make big errors on field
Meanwhile, PBKS made some major errors on the field. The PBKS fielders dropped as many as three catches, with Shashank Singh, Connolly and Lockie Ferguson dropping one each. The first instance took place during the eighth over of Ferguson, when Connolly dropped Ishan Kishan's sitter at the deep backward square leg. Shashank was the next culprit as his terrible time in catching continued. Heinrich Klaasen slog swept Yuzvendra Chahal to deep backward square leg, where Shashank dropped another easy one. He had already put down three catches against the LSG and one more against the DC.
Chahal was already in disbelief when Shashank dropped an easy one. He wore a stoic look when Lockie Ferguson put down another one at deep backward square leg as Kishan got another life. The nightmare wasn't over yet. Four balls later, wicketkeeper Prabhsimran missed out on a stumping chance against Kishan. PBKS' costly errors powered SRH to 235/4 which felt threatening against a hard-hitting Punjab line-up but they proved way more on the night.
SRH now go on top of the IPL 2026 points table as this was their seventh win of the tournament in 11 matches. PBKS have now suffered three back-to-back defeats and have slipped to second with 13 points from 10 games.
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