Praful Hinge turned Rajasthan Royals’ top order into a mess on Monday. Nobody expected him to come in for his first IPL match and blow the game wide open like that. Hinge, brought in by Sunrisers Hyderabad because their bowling was struggling, got rolling right away—he took out Vaibhav Sooryavanshi on his second ball, Dhruv Jurel on the fourth, and then dismissed Lhuan-dre Pretorius with the last ball of his first over. That’s a debut to remember. He didn’t stop there, either. In his next over, he got RR’s captain, Riyan Parag, too.
Hinge comes from Vidarbha and has built a name for himself in the red-ball format. So far, he’s played 10 first-class matches and grabbed 27 wickets at an average of 26.7. That’s not bad at all for a 24-year-old who’s played just a handful in the shorter formats. His T20 outings have been limited, but he already made a good impression—opening the bowling with Umesh Yadav, he held his own and went for just 23 runs in four overs against Andhra. That’s what caught the Sunrisers’ attention and they snapped him up for 30 lakh ahead of the 2026 season.
Earlier in the day, SRH’s captain Ishan Kishan fired them up with a blistering 91 off 44 balls—he was in his own zone, tearing into RR’s attack. Kishan hit eight boundaries and cleared the ropes six times. He got good support from Heinrich Klaasen, who added 40 from 26 balls. When Kishan finally fell, Nitish Reddy picked up the baton, smashing 28 off just 13 balls. Salil Arora finished unbeaten on 24 from 13 balls, helping Sunrisers reach a commanding 216 for six.
But things didn’t start smooth for SRH. Abhishek Sharma, right off the first ball, danced down the track and sliced Jofra Archer straight to Ravi Bishnoi in the deep. It was the kind of ambitious shot that makes or breaks you, and this time, it didn’t come off. Kishan, undeterred, then just kept finding the boundary—the flick over fine leg for four, and next ball, a six over deep midwicket off Archer. In the next over, he took on Nandre Burger and Sandeep Sharma, belting sixes and fours wherever he wanted. Meanwhile, Travis Head couldn’t catch a break and went for 18 off 18 balls, caught in the deep after Riyan Parag bravely brought himself on to bowl just after the powerplay.
After Head got out, Kishan just plowed on, blasting his way to 50 in 30 balls, including a monster six off Bishnoi. By the halfway mark, Sunrisers had crossed 100, thanks to Kishan’s aggression and some wayward bowling from Deshpande. Klaasen chipped in with a few more big hits, but Kishan was the star—he racked up three boundaries in a row off Archer, edging closer to his century, before holing out on a mistimed pull.
Abhishek Sharma, meanwhile, set an unwanted record—seven ducks in 2026, the most for any Indian batter in a calendar year. Before this match, Rohit Sharma and Sanju Samson shared the record with six ducks each, but Abhishek went past them after getting caught for a golden duck against RR. His season’s been inconsistent—he’s made 129 runs at a sky-high strike rate of 215.80 in five innings, but has struggled to convert starts, managing just one half-century with a top score of 74.
His T20 World Cup debut didn’t go to plan either. Hard to live up to the hype after a breakout 2025, but so far this year, he’s had a see-saw run—452 runs in 18 T20I innings, averaging 26.58, striking at over 200, but collecting five half-centuries along with seven ducks. When he’s on, he’s unstoppable, but those first-ball exits keep piling up. Indian cricket isn’t short of drama—Abhishek’s season tells you that much
