IPL Pulse: Soaring to souring

Wouldn't blame you if you checked your calendar after checking the scorecards to make sure we're still in 2026. Yep, we haven't, in fact, gone 10 years back in time. Turns out 160 scores are very much possible and can still produce fun games even in this day and age.

The Rajasthan Royals franchise was acquired for $1.65 billion (INR 15,660 crore) by a consortium led by Lakshmi Mittal. Confused? You have reason to be as a Kal Somani-led consortium was announced as owners just about a month ago. It turns out that arrangement fell through for various reasons and the Royals have new owners again. Well, not quite so new because current owner Manoj Badale is set to retain a minority stake and will act as a "bridge between the past and the present."

We definitely haven't heard the last on the matter though. The Somani group is naturally not very happy with what's transpired and are said to be seeking legal recourse.

The Icarus-fall award goes to SRH for soaring to 107/2 in the first 10 overs and then crashing to 165 all-out in the next nine

The certified-veteran award goes to Sunil Narine for becoming the first overseas bowler to claim 200 IPL wickets. Yeah, he's been around for a while now

The gully-cricket-bully award goes to Abhishek Sharma for opening both the batting and bowling. How much say he had in either matter is debatable though

The Titans have now won three on the bounce and it's hard to ignore that all of their wins have followed a familiar template - early strikes, mounting pressure, and a steady unravelling of the opposition's innings. GT have been a dominant force while bowling first, picking up 16 wickets in seven games. And while their chases haven't been as smooth as they'd like, they're still the most successful chasing-side since 2022.

"I've been saying this every year. Initially when IPL starts, the first four matches will be flat wickets. It's very tough for spinners to come into the game. Happened for every spinner. Everyone found it tough. As the tournament goes on, spinners come into the game," said Varun Chakaravarthy after his welcome return to form.

Washington Sundar said that he had to be "calculative" on a wicket where it was really difficult to get boundaries off "hard length balls."

Shreyas Iyer felt that it was a "great score on a wicket where the ball was doing a bit at the start." Hard lengths were back in the conversation as Iyer said that their bowlers "missed out" on hitting them.

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