IPL 2026 DC vs PBKS – ‘Had to work on my six-hitting’ – KL Rahul after record-breaking 152*

“I’ve taken a beating,” a dehydrated KL Rahul said at the midway stage in Delhi. The irony was hard to miss. For the 20 overs that had just unfolded, it was Rahul who had done all the beating. His 67-ball unbeaten 152 was so dominant that it now stands as the highest score by an Indian – not just in the IPL, but in all T20 cricket.

It’s another story that an error-strewn Delhi Capitals (DC) performance, coupled with imperious Punjab Kings (PBKS) batting, left Rahul’s innings on the losing side. For posting the third-highest score in IPL history – now sitting only behind Chris Gayle (175*) and Brendon McCullum (158*) – Rahul was the Player of the Match, and afterwards said the innings was him “catching up with the modern demands of T20 cricket” where sixes cannot wait.

“There’s no time in T20 cricket to say ‘later’,” Rahul told the broadcasters after the match. “There is time in ODI cricket to say, okay, maybe I can hold off for a couple of overs and attack at the back end’, but as an opening batter playing T20 cricket, that’s something that I watched and learned from the other guys who are playing international cricket and been successful, that there’s no time for you to think, okay, I’m going to go next over’.”

Rahul added he had compared his batting to the best in the world and realised six-hitting had to become a priority. He hit nine sixes on Saturday alongside 16 fours and maintained a strike rate of 227. No surprise, then, that this was Rahul’s fastest IPL century (47 balls), shaving nine deliveries off his previous fastest.

“Just had to step back a little bit and see where the T20 game has gone, and what the demand of T20 cricket is in today’s day and age,” Rahul said. “Watching the T20 World Cup [Rahul was not part of India’s World Cup-winning squad], watching some of the young guys coming in and smashing from ball one.

“I’ve spoken about six-hitting, and that’s something I had to really work on and give myself that sort of freedom to go out there and take on the bowling from maybe ball one, ball two.”

Rahul scored his half-century in 26 balls but accelerated to hit a further 102 in 41 deliveries. He said he had stayed “true to his game for the first 70-80 runs”, playing shots on merit, and also commended No. 3 Nitish Rana, who hit 91 off 44 balls. Rahul and Rana put on 220 runs for the second wicket, which now stands as the second-highest in IPL history (for any wicket) and the highest shared between two Indian batters.

“Honestly, only towards the end was I premeditating. I was just in a mindset to hit boundaries and put pressure on the bowlers. My strength is always to play proper cricket shots and I was trying to back that and try and believe that was good enough to get my team past 250”

KL Rahul

“Honestly, only towards the end was I premeditating,” Rahul said. “I was just in a mindset to hit boundaries and put pressure on the bowlers. My strength is always to play proper cricket shots and I was trying to back that and try and believe that was good enough to get my team past 250.

“When you [Rana] can hit proper cricket shots and get boundaries in the first six overs and continue to do that, then the bowling team feels a lot more pressure. The right- and left-hand combination worked. We continued batting and put pressure on the bowlers.”

In ESPNcricinfo’s studios, Deep Dasgupta said this innings was Rahul at his “100%”

“Even in [Rahul’s] previous hundreds, it felt like there was something [unused] in the tank,” Dasgupta said. “But this was KL at a 100%, and you couldn’t get anything more from him. We can talk about the dropped catch or the Punjab bowling effort, but his spatial awareness – the way he played the gaps – was incredible. He can turn a page post this innings and say ‘yes, I can play at this tempo and not be conservative at times’. This innings could be a gamechanger for him.”

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