The plan was simple. Quit alcohol, get fit, take wickets, force a national recall. Yuzvendra Chahal has done three of those four things impeccably this season. The fourth is being sabotaged, catch by dropped catch, by the very teammates he gave up his evenings for.
SRH vs PBKS: HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD
There is no rulebook for what a cricketer owes his team. But when Yuzvendra Chahal gave up alcohol in the off-season, shed the excess weight, and arrived for IPL 2026 looking leaner, sharper, and hungrier, a reasonable man might have expected something in return – a clean take at the boundary, perhaps, or a sharp chance held at slip. Instead, six catches have already gone down off his bowling this season. Throw in a missed stumping or two, and reasonable has long since left the building.
On Wednesday evening at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, it happened three times in five overs: two catches and a stumping spilled, each one a fresh stab in the back of a man who has already been denied a national recall despite being IPL’s most successful bowler. If Chahal was tempted to reach for the bottle after all that, frankly, who could blame him?
It started so promisingly. Sunrisers Hyderabad had plundered 79 in the powerplay, with Abhishek Sharma taking particular liberties against Arshdeep Singh and Marco Jansen – 35 runs off just 13 deliveries before he holed out. The stage was set for a total of 220-plus. Skipper Shreyas Iyer, sensing something in the pitch – perhaps a hint of grip – called for Chahal in the first over after the powerplay. It was a rare show of faith from a captain who, this season, has not always given his leg-spinner the trust his record demands.
It paid off immediately. A googly dipping at 86.6 kph, and Travis Head – who had been looking to clear the rope every ball – was undone. Marco Jansen took a clean catch at long-off, tracking a ball that climbed high into the Hyderabad night. Chahal had struck in his very first over. The partnership was broken.
That was, regrettably, the last good thing that happened to him all evening.
ONE AFTER ANOTHER
The misery arrived in waves. In the very next over, with Ishan Kishan on 9, Cooper Connolly – usually a safe pair of hands, a man you’d back in a tight spot – shelled a catch in Lockie Ferguson’s over. It was the first reprieve. It would not be the last.
Chahal’s own suffering deepened. He tied Heinrich Klaasen in knots with a delivery angled at pace and at the stumps, the South African attempting a sweep and skewing it straight to Shashank Singh at deep backward square leg. It was the kind of chance a fielder catches in his sleep. Shashank put it down. It was, by some measures, the fifth catch he had dropped in his last three IPL appearances – a staggering lapse for a player who had only just returned from a spell on the sidelines nursing a niggle.
Chahal came back. He beat Ishan Kishan with a googly, the batter reaching too far from his body, not generating enough power to clear the mid-wicket boundary. A routine chance, the kind you see taken 10 times out of ten at this level. Lockie Ferguson dropped it.
By this point, the cameras had found Ricky Ponting, Punjab’s head coach, mid-interview on the dugout boundary. Ponting, one of the great fielders of his era, had begun the conversation with a light-hearted acknowledgement of the dropped catches. Then a fourth chance went down in the span of five overs, and Ponting’s mood curdled visibly. He told the broadcasters he wanted to throw the microphone onto the pitch. It was half a joke. Only half.
The final blow came in the last delivery of Chahal’s over. A beautifully flighted leg-break, Ishan dancing down the track and beaten comprehensively – only for Prabhsimran Singh to miss what should have been a routine stumping. The batter had nowhere to go. The wicketkeeper found a way not to send him there.
Ishan Kishan and Heinrich Klaasen, both reprieved on single-digit scores, collected their thoughts – and then collected their runs. An 88-run partnership in 48 balls. Kishan finished with 55 off 32; Klaasen smashed 69 off 43. SunRisers Hyderabad posted 235 for 4. A total that was a good 20 runs higher than it needed to be, and everyone in the Punjab Kings dressing room knew exactly why.
SORRY NUMBERS
- 6: Catches dropped off Chahal this season
- 5: Matches where Chahal bowled full quota (of 10)
- 73.6: Punjab Kings’ catching efficiency – second-lowest in IPL 2026
- 88:Run partnership after drops; Klaasen & Kishan in 48 balls
The contrast with what followed was painful. SunRisers held their nerve on the field. Eshan Malinga took a fine catch in Pat Cummins’ first over to remove the dangerous Priyansh Arya for 1. Cummins himself covered yards to pouch a high, spiralling catch off Nitish Reddy’s bowling to end Prabhsimran Singh’s stay for 3. And when Shreyas Iyer skied one attempting to launch the chase, Cummins was under it in an instant. Punjab were 23 for 3, their three most productive run-scorers gone before a partnership of any consequence could take root.
Cooper Connolly batted through the innings with remarkable composure – 107 not out, eight sixes, a knock that belonged in a winning cause. It was not enough. Punjab fell 33 runs short.
Three successive defeats have slid Punjab from top of the table to third. They remain in the top four and the playoffs remain theirs to claim. But momentum is a fragile and fickle currency, and right now Punjab Kings are haemorrhaging it in the field.
“If you keep dropping catches, a doubt creeps into the mind – am I catching properly, am I being too anxious? I think all our players are well-equipped to handle pressure. But we will go back, reflect, and definitely come back,” Punjab Kings’ bowling coach Sairaj Bahutule said after the game.
Bahutule’s words were measured, but the subtext was clear: this has become a mental problem, not merely a technical one. A team that produced arguably the catch of the season – Shreyas Iyer’s extraordinary relay effort against Mumbai Indians, all hang time and instinct – has become a side that fumbles the straightforward and freezes under scrutiny.
And somewhere in all of this is Yuzvendra Chahal, a man who gave up his vices to be the best version of himself this season. He has done everything right. He has bowled the googlies, found the grip, and beaten the bat. He simply cannot find anyone to finish the job for him.
The playoffs beckon for Punjab Kings. But if they intend to go deep into this tournament, their fielders need to start catching what Chahal is creating, before his patience, like last year’s bar tab, runs out entirely.
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