LSG vs RR IPL 2026 Highlights: Royals beat listless Lucknow by 40 runs

Mayank pushes at the third ball of the 18th by Archer, gets a thick edge that flies to Jurel's right. He dives that way and takes the catch with the ball almost behind him.

Mayank Yadav c Jurel b Archer 5 (5)

Wicket No.2 for Burger and well, this match is looking like a foregone conclusion now. Marsh swung, mishit and it goes very high up in the air. Parag runs back from extra cover and takes a sharp catch.

And just to show how think LSG's batting is outside that non-performing star-studded top order, the man who walks out at No.8 is Mohammed Shami.

Marsh c Parag b Burger 55 (41)

LSG 105/6 in 15.3 overs

Marsh is on 34 off 27 balls, Himmat Singh at the other end on two off four. Himmat has been around for a while in domestic cricket, playing for Delhi since 2017.

LSG need 98 to win from 54 balls, their run rate is 5.63 while their required rate is 10.88.

Two fours, has Pooran found his groove? Brijesh Sharma bowls the seventh over. His fourth ball is a slow bouncer that Pooran crashes behind square for four. The last ball is full outside off, Pooran drives it beautifully through extra cover for four.

Pooran on 14 off 14, Marsh on 24 off 18.

LSG 40/3 in 7 overs

Well, it's pretty clear now that this is not the easiest pitch to bat on, which makes the shot selection of Pant and Markram even more puzzling. Archer beat Pooran a couple of times and so the latter quite lucky to still be out there at the end of the over. He is on five off eight, Marsh on 15 off 12.

LSG 22/3 in 5 overs

Nandre Burger in the second over, Marsh gets off strike first ball. Pant danced down the track and swung at the first ball he faced. He missed. He danced down the track and swung second ball. He missed. He gets down on his knee and almost tries to sweep a length delivery third ball. He doesn't miss. Not entirely at least. Gets an edge and through to the keeper. Not much for tactics or thinking, the LSG captain. Go big or go bust. In T20s, it has mostly been the latter for him. For LSG, it has rarely been the former for him. Astonishingly poor from someone who plays cricket for a living. Can't be using "this is the way I play" as an excuse for blind batting.

Pant c Jurel b Burger 0 (3)

LSG 10/2 in 1.4 overs

All right, LSG are sticking with Ayush Badoni at the top of the order. Mitchell Marsh is on strike, Jofra Archer to start the RR attack. LSG need 160 to win.

Now LSG had two reviews yet and so this might be a case of them just using one because of that and even then, this has to be one of the worst reviews ever taken. Fifth ball of the 19th by Prince, perfect yorker on leg as Jadeja started making room. Ball goes to Pant's right, he had hurt his nose earlier and he seems to have hurt it again diving for it. However, Pant gets up and actually reviews this! Jadeja had moved way outside leg, Prince had followed him and hit his pads. Ball tracking shows that the ball would've missed the stumps, which is exactly what a bat that uses only SONAR to see things would've said as well. Dubey finished that over with a four between backward point and short third.

Well Shami would've had had a third wicket had it not been for Mayank Yadav's misjudgement. Shami banged in the first ball of the 13th over short on off stump, Ferreira pulled. If Mayank was not so far in at deep backward square, the shorter boundary, it would've been an easy catch. Instead it went over his head, he tried to get to it by jumping up and backwards with an outstretched hand. Two runs after that in that over and then six runs off Rathi in the next.

Mohsin Khan with another huge victory. Back of a length on off stump, it angles into Hetmyer who is absolutely unsure about what to do. Makes a hopeful prod leg side, takes a leading edge and Prince takes the catch at mid off.

Hetmyer c Prince Yadav b Mohsin Khan 22 (18)

RR 77/5 in 10.2 overs

And he maintains good piece throughout that seventh over. Starts out with a 141kph half-volley to Hetmyer, who sends it through cover and runs two. Then Mayank goes wide down leg side, 143kph. The next ball is speared in full outside off 147kph, Hetmyer misses his prod. Third ball is a 144kph bouncer, Hetmyer pulls along the ground for a single. Parag then tries an upper cut, the 136kph delivery came into him and hit him on the shoulder. Then he takes the pace off, 110kph full delivery that Parag digs out. The last ball was a 137kph half volley on the pads. A hit-me delivery and hit he did, Parag flicks it away over long leg for a six.

RR 54/3 in 7 overs

Mohsin gets the big wicket, Rathi does well to track and back and take the catch coming over his shoulder, and then he goes and does an Imran Tahir! LSG flying early here! Mohsin ends the fourth over with short one, Sooryavanshi tries to go pull it, his first attempt at a big shot today really. Takes the edge and goes high into the sky. Rathi runs back towards the boundary, ball comes down over his shoulder and he does well to hold on.

Even more incredibly, that is a wicket maiden. Sooryavanshi was pinned to the crease throughout that over.

Sooryavanshi c Rathi b Mohsin Khan 8 (11)

RR 32/3 in 4 overs

How about it. Jaiswal with three back-to-back fours off the second, third and fourth balls of the fourth over. Then Shami smashes one in at 141kph, Jaiswal swivelled but the ball went a little higher than he expected it seems. Takes a feather edge and Pant rises high to take the catch.

Jaiswal c Pant b Mohammed Shami 22 (12)

RR 32/1 in 2.5 overs

Just a run off the first three balls, which came from Shami bowling the third ball wide outside off. Then Shami goes for a length ball on the pads, Jaiswal glances it off his pads for four through deep fine leg. A single to to end the over, and so Jaiswal will remain on strike for the second over, which will be bowled by Prince Yadav.

Rishabh Pant: We're looking to bowl first, you know. We have been playing in this condition. Still figuring what's best but, the way our team is, we want to put our opposition under pressure when they bat first. (On the conditions in Lucknow) When you look at last few matches, it's been challenging, but at the same time, as a team, we love that challenge. We're going to figure out a way, how we play on our home soil and not looking as a disadvantage. As a player, you're going to find the way. (Rejig after losing three matches?) I think mostly a little bit changes, just a subtle change because you don't want massive change because you want to still keep the stability in the team. Just two changes from bowling side, Rathi comes in for us in place of Sid and Mayank comes in for Avesh. (On Pooran) It's a bit challenging, but at the same time, a player who has shown so much potential in the top stage, you want to trust him regardless of whatever he's doing. When you talk about him, he's really important for our team. And that was the love and care is all about towards Nicholas Pooran.

Riyan Parag: I actually told my boys I was going to try and lose the toss because I was very confused. And I did that pretty well. So I'm happy with either bowling or batting. I feel batting first, we played a few domestic games here and it slowed down a little on the later half. So hopefully we get a start back. I think we batted pretty well. Even last game against Kolkata, I think we made a few miscalculations in the middle overs. But I feel the way Jaiswal and Vaibhav batted with the wickets that they had, I think that was brilliant. Like I said, a few errors here and there. The message is that we need to play 40 overs of good cricket. Only then can we expect a win. Hopefully do that tonight. Same team.

Rishabh Pant has won the toss and LSG are bowling first.

So how has the wonder teen fared in these two defeats for RR you ask? Well the first of those was a 57-run loss against SRH and Sooryavanshi fell for a shiny golden duck to Sakib Hussain. They then lost to KKR by four wickets and Sooryavanshi had scored 46 in 28 balls. A strike rate of 164.28, which is slow by his standards.

RR raced away to four consecutive wins in their opening games. But now, they find themselves on slightly shaky ground after two back to back defeats to struggling teams. Last season, they won eight of their first nine matches before losing all of their remaining matches in the league stage. They qualified for the playoffs anyhow but lost in Q2. In 2023, they won four of their first five games and then lost their way entirely. So much that they didn't even qualify for the playoffs.

Riyan Parag has been quite impressive this season as captain, particularly in the couple of close wins RR pulled off early on. However, his batting has been a source of worry. Parag has scored just 61 runs thus far in six innings at a strike rate of 126.98. His highest score thus far has been just 20.

Among the many things that refuse to stop following LSG is rumours about the nature of the relationship between their owner Sanjeev Goenka and their captain. It was KL Rahul earlier, it is Rishabh Pant now. Now while Goenka and Rahul haven't really done much to play down reports of them not seeing eye to eye, the latter has laughed off any such rumours with Pant. READ MORE.

Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Mukul Choudhary, Mohammed Shami, Avesh Khan, Prince Yadav, Manimaran Siddharth, Mohsin Khan, Abdul Samad, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Matthew Breetzke, Mayank Yadav, Himmat Singh, George Linde, Josh Inglis, Anrich Nortje, Arjun Tendulkar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Akash Maharaj Singh, Akshat Raghuwanshi, Arshin Kulkarni, Naman Tiwari