HYDERABAD: It was a tale of two debutants and how they were sent off. Rajasthan Royals First defeat in IPL 2026 on Monday.Vidarbha’s Parful Hinge (4/34) and Bihar’s Saqib Hussain (4/24), the former 24 and the latter 21, could not have asked for a better start to their IPL careers. Steaming up and hitting tight lengths was all it took as Rajasthan Royals committed to Hara Kari. The finesse with which they converted RCB’s 201/8 a few days ago was conspicuously absent and poor shot selection added to their woes in a 57-run defeat.One of the two changes that SRH made, Hinge broke the visitors’ back with the second, fourth and sixth deliveries of the first over. It looked like the Royals lacked the stomach to fight back when Vibhu Suryavanshi got the required pull in the hands of wicketkeeper Salil Arora on the very first ball. Dhruv Jural continued with a single delivery and so did debutant Luan Dre Pretorius.Yashvi Jaiswal edged ‘Impact Player’ Hussain – who had come in for Travis Head – straight to Nitish Reddy at third man and when skipper Ryan Parag succumbed to Henge, Royals had lost half their team for just nine runs in the third over.Despite contributions from Donovan Ferreira (69; 44b, 7×4, 3×6) and Ravindra Jadeja (45; 32b, 5×4) and their 118-run stand (72b) for the sixth wicket, the Royals, who finished on 159, required 146 from the last five and 109 from the last five.Sunrisers Hyderabad’s total of 216/6, thanks to Ishan Kishan, proved to be ahead of them on the shirt front being used for the first time at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. Kishan (91; 44b, 8×4, 6×6) may have lost his fifth consecutive toss but the lanky SRH skipper hardly put a foot wrong on the day.Jofra Archer dismissed Abhishek Sharma for his seventh duck with the first delivery of the match as Royals’ joy was cut short as Kishan stepped up to overturn the early deficit.
