He Was 22 Off 14. Then He Hit 71 Off 19. Rajat Patidar's Innings Against GT Was The Most Extraordinary Thing IPL 2026 Has Produced.

There is a moment in every great innings when the match stops being a contest and becomes something else entirely. When the bowlers are still trying, still running in, still going through their plans — but everyone watching knows it is over. The batter has simply decided.

That moment came at HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala on Monday night when Rajat Patidar was 22 off 14 balls. Scratchy. Cautious. Not himself. Kagiso Rabada had already beaten his outside edge twice. Jason Holder had bowled him a delivery that he had mistimed straight to cover — and then watched it land six inches short of the fielder's hands, dropping safely to the turf for a single.

Then something shifted.

He launched Rashid Khan — the best spinner in the IPL, a bowler who had been among the tournament's top wicket-takers all season — over extra cover on the full. Not over mid-wicket. Not over long-on. Over extra cover, off a good-length ball, one-handed at the point of contact. It was the shot of a batter who had decided the match was over. And from that moment, it was.

In the next 19 balls, Rajat Patidar scored 71 runs. He finished on 93 not out off 33 deliveries. Strike rate 281.81 — the highest ever for a captain in a fifty-plus innings in IPL history. Nine sixes. Six fours. One dot ball. And at the end of it, Virat Kohli — standing at the non-striker's end, watching his captain dismantle the best bowling attack in the competition — was visibly slack-jawed.

RCB posted 254 for 5. The highest total in IPL playoff history. GT were bowled out for 162 in reply. RCB won by 92 runs. And on Sunday, May 31, at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, they will play Gujarat Titans in the IPL 2026 final — their second consecutive final, defending the title they won last year.

Pakistan Have Lost 12 Of Their Last 16 Tests. They Just Lost To Bangladesh Again. And Nobody Seems To Know How To Stop It.

 

There is a line that ESPNcricinfo — the most widely read cricket website in the world — published this week that stopped a lot of people in their tracks.

"The 1960s were wretched for Pakistan. The late 2000s awful. Right now might be worst of all."

Read that again. Not a social media account. Not an angry fan. ESPNcricinfo. The publication that covers cricket more carefully and more thoroughly than any other. And their verdict on Pakistan cricket in 2026 is that it might be the lowest point in the country's entire Test history.

It is a sentence that deserves to be taken seriously. Because the numbers behind it are not exaggerated. They are simply the record.

Since Shan Masood took over as Pakistan's Test captain in late 2023, Pakistan have won four matches and lost twelve in sixteen Tests. Twelve losses. In sixteen matches. A win percentage of 25 percent. The second-highest number of defeats for any Pakistan captain — and Masood has done it in far fewer matches than the only man ahead of him on that list.

They have been bowled out for 146 at home against Bangladesh. They lost a home series to England 3-0. They were whitewashed 3-0 in Australia. They lost in South Africa despite having the game in their hands multiple times. And last week, in Sylhet, they became the first Pakistan team in history to lose a Test series in Bangladesh — 2-0, the same scoreline that started all of this in Rawalpindi in 2024.

The same mistakes. The same collapses. The same post-match press conferences where the captain says the right things and nothing changes. That is the Pakistan Test cricket story of 2026. And it is getting harder and harder to find a reason to believe it is going to get better any time soon.

Pat Cummins Got A Handshake. Abhishek Sharma Got A Handshake. Travis Head Got Nothing. And The Whole World Saw It.

 

The match was over. SRH had won by 55 runs. The two teams lined up at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium for the customary post-match handshakes — that brief, professional ritual that professional cricketers perform after every game, regardless of what happened in the eighty overs before it.

Virat Kohli walked down the line. He shook hands with Pat Cummins — the SRH captain who had just watched his team beat RCB convincingly. He shook hands with Abhishek Sharma. He looked ahead and kept walking. Travis Head had his arm outstretched, waiting. Kohli walked straight past him without making eye contact.

The cameras caught every frame of it.

By the time the post-match presentation had finished, the clip was everywhere. On X. On Instagram. On WhatsApp groups across India, Pakistan, Australia — anywhere cricket is watched and discussed. Two of the most recognisable faces in world cricket, in the middle of an IPL playoff week, in a moment that told a story without a single word being spoken.

But to understand what that handshake refusal meant, you have to go back to what happened during the match itself. Because this did not start after the final whistle. It started in the middle of the sixteenth over of RCB's chase — and once it started, it was never going to end quietly.

Australia Are Coming To Pakistan Without Their Best Players. Pakistan Have Just Lost A Test Series To Bangladesh. May 30 Cannot Come Soon Enough.

 

In nine days, two cricket teams with completely different problems arrive at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium for the first of three ODIs that both of them desperately need.

Pakistan need it because they have just lost a Test series to Bangladesh. At home. In Sylhet. A result so unexpected, so damaging to the confidence of a team already dealing with questions about their direction and leadership, that captain Shan Masood stood in front of the cameras afterwards and said his side needed to find the "root causes" of their recurring failures. He was not wrong. But finding root causes and fixing them before May 30 are two very different things.

Australia need it because the team arriving in Pakistan is not quite the Australia that won the ODI World Cup. Pat Cummins is in Kolkata finishing the IPL season. Mitchell Starc is in Hyderabad. Josh Hazlewood is in Bengaluru. The fast bowling attack that has made Australia the most feared white-ball team in world cricket for the last three years is scattered across Indian franchise grounds, watching their IPL contracts through to the end.

What arrives on Pakistani soil on May 23 is an Australia squad that Mitchell Marsh will captain — the same Mitchell Marsh who has just finished a brilliant IPL season with Lucknow Super Giants, averaging nearly 50 with the bat at a strike rate of 169. An Australia squad that contains Marnus Labuschagne, Josh Inglis, Cameron Green, Adam Zampa, and a collection of emerging talents who are being given a chance to make their case for the ODI World Cup squad.

A depleted Australia. A Pakistan side that has just been embarrassed by Bangladesh. Three matches. Two venues. And a series that, on paper, nobody has a clear claim to going in.

He Was 11 Off 12 Balls. Then Something Clicked. Vaibhav Suryavanshi Made 93 Off 38 — And Rajasthan Royals Are Alive Again.

 

At one point in the fourth over, Vaibhav Suryavanshi had made 11 runs off 12 balls. For a fifteen-year-old who has spent this IPL season hitting sixes that grown men with fifteen more years of experience have never managed, 11 off 12 felt like something was wrong. The crowd at Sawai Mansingh Stadium — his home crowd, the people who have watched him grow up — could feel it too.

Then Akash Singh overpitched. Suryavanshi drove him through covers for four. Then another. Then a reverse sweep for two. Suddenly he was 23 off 16, and the innings that had looked like it might belong to the cautious category — the careful, measured knock — had become something else entirely.

He finished with 93 off 38 balls. Six fours. Eight sixes. His 48th six of the IPL 2026 season — more than any Rajasthan Royals batter has ever hit in a single IPL campaign, surpassing Jos Buttler's record of 45 set in 2022. And when Dhruv Jurel hit the six off Prince Yadav that sealed the chase with five balls to spare, the number on the scoreboard read 225 for 3. Rajasthan Royals had chased down 221 — Lucknow Super Giants' 220 for 5 had been one of the better first innings of IPL 2026's final week — with seven wickets and nearly a full over to spare.

After three consecutive defeats that had threatened to end their season before the final week had even properly begun, Rajasthan Royals are alive. They are fourth on the IPL 2026 points table with 14 points from 13 matches. And the equation, for the first time in three weeks, could not be simpler: beat Mumbai Indians on Sunday, and they are in the playoffs.