Just hours after the Artemis II crew splashed down from their historic journey around the moon, a few willow-wielders took guard at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Stadium as if they were determined to send some cricket balls back into the lunar orbit.

A mammoth 442 runs were plundered by the Sunrisers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings batters, at the end of which PBKS triumphed by six wickets on Saturday.

Abhishek Sharma’s 28-ball 74 (5x4, 8x6) provided the launchpad for SRH’s 219 for six. However, Priyansh Arya (57, 20b, 5x4, 5x6), Prabhsimran Singh (51, 25b, 4x4, 4x6) and Shreyas Iyer (69 n.o., 33b, 5x4, 5x6) ensured PBKS remained unbeaten in IPL 2026.

SRH left-arm wrist-spinner Shivang Kumar bowled with gumption (4-0-33-3) and prised out PBKS’ top-three, but the damage had been done before he was introduced in the seventh over.

While Abhishek’s half-century came off 18 balls, Priyansh’s came two deliveries faster. It took the SRH openers 3.4 overs to breach the 50-run mark; their counterparts did it in 3.3.

The blistering start made the rest of the run chase a formality as skipper Shreyas took the side home with seven deliveries to spare.

Earlier, Arshdeep Singh’s 10-ball second over went for 24 runs, where Abhishek punished anything in his arc with elan.

Part-time bowler Shashank Singh proved to be the unlikely partnership-breaker after the 105-run PowerPlay.

The gentle medium-pacer repaid the faith shown by Shreyas by having Travis Head (38, 23b, 5x4, 1x6) and Abhishek caught in the deep. After being 120 for no loss in eight overs, the SRH innings lost momentum.

Arshdeep’s 14th over saw two contrasting fielding efforts. While Marcus Stoinis dropped Heinrich Klaasen at long-off, Marco Jansen ran to his right and plucked the ball out of thin air with his outstretched right hand to send back Ishan Kishan.

The nonchalance of the whole exercise saw Arshdeep cover his mouth and sit down in disbelief, though the crowd’s reaction was to stand up and applaud.

Later, Klaasen tossed his bat in the air out of frustration after his scratchy innings (39, 33b, 1x4, 1x6). Perhaps he knew that his knock would come back to haunt his team.

The PBKS willow-wielders made sure of it.