The restless, untested duo of Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain shared eight wickets on their debut to bowl Sunrisers Hyderabad to a 57-run win over Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2026 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here on Monday.

When handed the daunting task of taming the JaiSurya phenomenon, Praful came through spectacularly. No bowler in the history of IPL had scalped three in the opening over, let alone a debutant, until the 24-year-old from Vidarbha came knocking.

After a single to get the 217-run chase going, Yashasvi Jaiswal could only watch helplessly as Praful rocked the Royals top-order. Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel and Lhuan-dre Pretorius walked back shell-shocked for ducks.

Sakib accounted for Jaiswal before Praful returned to send Riyan Parag trudging back to the dugout and took flight a la Shoaib Akhtar.

Ravindra Jadeja and Donovan Ferreira arrested the rapid slide with a risk-free century stand, helped generously by an opponent which took its foot off the pedal. However, Sakib returned to outfox Ferreira with a beautifully disguised slower ball.

Three deliveries later, Jadeja followed suit. Soon Sunrisers handed Royals their first defeat of the season.

Earlier, skipper Ishan Kishan’s counterattacking 44-ball 91 powered SRH to 216 for six. Jofra Archer removed Abhishek Sharma for a golden duck and Travis Head perished after riding his luck.

But Kishan did the heavy lifting with a raucous home crowd swaying to his every move.

Just 19 balls after reaching his 19th IPL fifty, Kishan surged into the nineties, hammering Archer for three consecutive boundaries.

A brief floodlight failure broke momentum, with Royals using it to remove the southpaw and Heinrich Klaasen.

Nitish Kumar then proved why the No. 5 spot should have never left him as he and Salil Arora plundered 24 runs off a Sandeep Sharma over — the most expensive of the night — pushing Sunrisers to a big total. Praful and Sakib then ran riot.

Scoreboard

SUNRISERS HYDERABAD

Abhishek Sharma c Bishnoi b Archer 0 (1b), Travis Head c Ferreira b Parag 18 (18b, 3x4), Ishan Kishan c & b Sandeep 91 (44b, 8x4, 6x6), Heinrich Klaasen c Parag b Deshpande 40 (26b, 1x4, 3x6), Nitish Kumar c Jurel b Archer 28 (13b, 4x6), Salil Arora (not out) 24 (13b, 2x4, 2x6), Aniket Verma run out 6 (5b, 1x4), Harsh Dubey (not out) 0 (0b); Extras (lb-1, w-8): 9; Total (for six wkts. in 20 overs): 216.

FALL OF WICKETS

1-0 (Abhishek, 0.1 overs), 2-55 (Head, 6.5), 3-143 (Kishan, 13.2), 4-162 (Klaasen, 15.5), 5-195 (Nitish, 18.3), 6-209 (Aniket, 19.4).

ROYALS BOWLING

Archer 4-0-37-2, Burger 4-0-31-0, Sandeep 4-0-52-1, Deshpande 4-0-55-1, Parag 1-0-5-1, Bishnoi 3-0-35-0.

RAJASTHAN ROYALS

Yashasvi Jaiswal c Nitish b Sakib 1 (5b), Vaibhav Suryavanshi (Impact Player for Sandeep) c Salil b Praful 0 (1b), Dhruv Jurel b Praful 0 (2b), Lhuan-dre Pretorius c Nitish b Praful 0 (2b), Riyan Parag c Abhishek b Praful 4 (6b, 1x4), Ravindra Jadeja c Salil b Malinga 45 (32b, 5x4), Donovan Ferreira b Sakib 69 (44b, 7x4, 3x6), Jofra Archer c Praful b Sakib 2 (5b), Tushar Deshpande c Kishan b Malinga 25 (11b, 3x6), Ravi Bishnoi c Kishan b Sakib 0 (1b), Nandre Burger (not out) 3 (5b); Extras (lb-1, w-9): 10; Total (in 19 overs): 159.

FALL OF WICKETS

1-1 (Suryavanshi, 0.2), 2-1 (Jurel, 0.4), 3-1 (Pretorius, 0.6), 4-2 (Jaiswal, 1.4), 5-9 (Parag, 2.6), 6-127 (Ferreira, 14.6), 7-129 (Jadeja, 15.3), 8-140 (Archer, 16.5), 9-140 (Bishnoi, 16.6).

SUNRISERS BOWLING

Praful 4-0-34-4, Sakib (Impact Player for Head) 4-0-24-4, Malinga 4-0-31-2, Shivang 3-0-28-0, Nitish 2-0-19-0, Harsh 2-0-22-0.

Toss: Royals; PoM: Praful.

SRH won by 57 runs.