IPL 2026: Shashank Singh's costly drop of KL Rahul leaves Ricky Ponting fuming, Preity Zinta stunned

NEW DELHI: Punjab Kings batter Shashank Singh found himself at the centre of another fielding lapse, this time during the IPL 2026 clash between Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Saturday.

Shashank dropped a straightforward catch of KL Rahul off Arshdeep Singh’s bowling in the third over of the innings.

The Punjab fielder, who had also put down multiple chances in the previous match against Lucknow Super Giants, grassed a sitter at deep square leg. KL Rahul pulled a short delivery from Arshdeep straight towards the fielder, but the chance was spilled and the ball raced away to the boundary.

The moment left Arshdeep Singh visibly disappointed, while Punjab Kings co-owner Preity Zinta was also seen reacting in frustration.

The broadcast camera also cut to head coach Ricky Ponting in the dugout, where he appeared visibly upset with his hands on his head after the missed opportunity.

Rahul, who was dropped on 12 by Shashank, made full use of the reprieve and kept the momentum going, racing to a half-century off just 26 balls.

This was also the fourth instance of KL Rahul scoring 35 or more runs off the first 15 balls of an IPL innings, with his previous such knocks coming twice in 2018 and once in 2019.

Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel won the toss and elected to bat against table toppers Punjab Kings.

The hosts, who are at number six in the table, are unchanged from their previous outing and so are Punjab Kings, who are perched atop with five wins from six matches.

Teams:

Delhi Capitals: Axar Patel (C), KL Rahul, Pathum Nissanka, Sameer Rizvi, Nitish Rana, Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan, and Mukesh Kumar.

Punjab Kings: Shreyas Iyer (C), Prabhsimran Singh, Priyansh Arya, Cooper Connolly, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, and Yuzvendra Chahal.