Tilak Varma punishes Punjab as playoff dream fades; MI hand PBKS fifth straight defeat

NEW DELHI: Punjab Kings (PBKS) suffered their 5th consecutive decision successful IPL 2026 arsenic Mumbai Indians (MI) registered a six-wicket triumph successful a important clash connected Thursday successful Dharamsala. Shardul Thakur’s four-wicket haul and Tilak Varma’s unbeaten 75 helped Mumbai pursuit down 201 successful 19.5 overs and further dent Punjab’s playoff hopes.Batting archetypal aft being enactment in, Punjab got disconnected to a beardown commencement done Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh. The brace added 50 runs successful 33 balls, taking the broadside to 55 for 1 successful the powerplay. Priyansh made 27 earlier Deepak Chahar cleaned him up successful the sixth over.Prabhsimran past added different 57 runs with Cooper Connolly arsenic Punjab crossed the 100-run people successful the 12th over. The opener made 57 and reached his 50 with a azygous earlier hitting different six disconnected Shardul Thakur implicit backward quadrate leg.However, Mumbai fought backmost powerfully successful the mediate overs. Shardul, who had conceded 15 runs successful his archetypal over, removed Prabhsimran and skipper Shreyas Iyer (4) wrong 3 balls to displacement momentum.Most wins successful 200+ chases successful T20s

Raj Bawa besides contributed by dismissing Connolly and past taking a crisp drawback astatine abbreviated midwicket to region Suryansh Shedge disconnected Shardul’s bowling. Punjab kept losing wickets arsenic Shashank Singh and Marco Jansen departed cheaply.

Despite the collapse, Azmatullah Omarzai played an important manus successful the decease overs. He scored 38 disconnected 17 balls with 2 sixes and a four. Vishnu Vinod and Xavier Bartlett besides chipped successful arsenic Punjab collected 53 runs successful the last 3 overs to decorativeness astatine 200 for 8.For Mumbai, Deepak Chahar took 2 for 36 portion Shardul finished with 4 for 39.Chasing 201, Mumbai began aggressively done Ryan Rickelton, who attacked from the commencement contempt Rohit Sharma struggling astatine the different end.

Rickelton smashed 48 disconnected 23 balls with 4 fours and 4 sixes arsenic Mumbai raced to 59 without loss.Punjab pulled things backmost concisely aft removing Rickelton, Naman Dhir and Rohit Sharma. Yuzvendra Chahal bowled a choky spell and dismissed Rohit arsenic Mumbai slipped to 89 for 3.Tilak Varma past steadied the innings. He added 61 runs with Sherfane Rutherford, who scored 20, earlier taking complaint successful the closing overs. Punjab had a accidental to disregard Tilak, but Marco Jansen dropped a hard drawback disconnected Arshdeep Singh’s bowling.With 72 needed from the past 5 overs, Tilak and Rutherford attacked Chahal and collected 20 runs successful 1 over. Even aft Rutherford fell, Tilak continued the pursuit confidently.He deed Marco Jansen for 2 sixes and a 4 successful the 18th over, which went for 22 runs and pushed Mumbai up successful the game. Needing 15 runs successful the last over, Tilak finished the pursuit with 2 sixes.Tilak remained unbeaten connected 75 disconnected 33 balls arsenic Mumbai reached 201 for 4 successful 19.5 overs.The decision near Punjab needing wins successful some their remaining matches to enactment live successful the contention for the playoffs.