Punjab Kings' chasing run

Punjab Kings have turned run chases into a pattern, winning nine of their last 11 while batting second since the start of the 2025 Indian Premier League season. (tribuneindia.com) The sequence runs across league games and the 2025 playoffs. ESPNcricinfo’s results list shows chase wins against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans, plus a Qualifier 2 win over Mumbai on June 1, 2025. (espncricinfo.com) Two April 2026 wins made the trend hard to miss. Punjab chased 210 against Chennai Super Kings on April 3 in 18.4 overs, then overhauled 220 against Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 11 in 18.5 overs. (espncricinfo.com, espn.com) They followed that with a 196 chase against Mumbai Indians on April 16, finishing at 198 for 3 with 21 balls left. Prabhsimran Singh made 80 not out from 39 balls and Shreyas Iyer scored 66 from 35. (espncricinfo.com) A chase is not just a total on the board; it is a moving target built from required rate and wickets in hand. Punjab’s recent wins show top-order runs arriving early enough that the asking rate does not spike in the last five overs. (espn.com, espncricinfo.com) Against Sunrisers, Priyansh Arya hit 57 from 25 and Prabhsimran added 51 from 23 before Iyer closed with 69 not out. Against Mumbai, Prabhsimran and Iyer again handled the middle of the chase after Punjab chose to field first. (espn.com, espncricinfo.com) That batting order has also produced extreme chase numbers in the league’s highest-scoring games. ESPNcricinfo noted after the Sunrisers match that Punjab had reached 10 successful 200-plus chases in Indian Premier League history, the most by any franchise. (espncricinfo.com) Iyer’s form sits near the center of it. ESPNcricinfo reported on April 17 that he had scores of 50, 69 not out and 66 in his previous three innings, while Aaron Finch described the run as a product of “clarity, smartness, execution.” (espncricinfo.com) Punjab were also last season’s losing finalists, so these chases are not a one-week burst at the top of the table. They are spread over two seasons, multiple venues and targets from 96 in a rain-shortened game to 220 in a full 20-over match. (espncricinfo.com) The cleanest way to test the run is phase by phase: powerplay scoring, wickets lost before the 10th over, and who faces the last 30 balls. Punjab’s results already show one answer in plain sight — when the chase stays organized, they keep making big targets look smaller than they are. (tribuneindia.com, espncricinfo.com)