Vijaykumar Vyshak, Punjab Kings' pacer, tops the IPL 2026 bowling charts. Five wickets from just two games. He's dead set on tweaking his skills each season—knuckle balls and all that—pulling inspiration from skipper Shreyas Iyer plus his own hunger. Team victories? That's his north star. And yeah, he's gunning for a Test berth.

PBKS hold second spot. Five points off two wins in three outings. Iyer's got this squad ticking with real shape to it. Rain wrecked their last one against KKR—25/2 after 3.4 overs, called off, no result. Before that, they carried an unbeaten streak right into SRH, where openers Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya squared off against Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma.

Arshdeep Singh. Yuzvendra Chahal. Throw in Vyshak's hot run, and this rebuild's got legs.

Heinrich Klaasen, Sunrisers Hyderabad's big-hitting keeper, isn't coming back to international cricket for South Africa—no matter how he's smashing it in IPL 2026. Post-retirement, he's all in on franchise stuff now. Those recent knocks? 145 runs at 147.95 strike rate, including two fifties.

Eye gym training keeps him sharp, he says. And he's right behind SRH's setup with Ishan Kishan standing in as captain.

Rashid Khan's backing out of Afghanistan's one-off Test against India in June 2026. Back troubles linger after surgery, and the docs say hold off—get fit for that 2027 ODI World Cup instead. He's eyeing just one Test a year from here, chasing white-ball cricket and a longer career.

Fresh off IPL standout stuff—think 3/17 against DC—thanks to his comeback and skipping Tests. That sparked GT's tight victory.

Varun Chakravarthy's gone right off the boil in IPL 2026. Those peak years? Ancient history now. Dig into the numbers, and you see shorter lengths—back of a length stuff mostly—plus a lousy economy on good lengths since the T20 World Cup. Batters pick his variations apart without breaking sweat. KKR's spin attack pays the price.

Hand injury's got him sidelined anyway. Missed the last few games, doubtful to feature soon. Sourav Ganguly voiced concerns over his dip.

BCCI's dropping some strict new rules for IPL 2026. No practice sessions for teams on match days. Benched players? They're restricted from the field and banned from sitting in front of those LED boards. Bus travel's mandatory for everyone.

Stuff like sleeveless jerseys at presentations will cost you. Penalties hit hard. All this to smooth out operations. Cut the disruptions. League runs cleaner.

Prabhsimran Singh, Punjab Kings opener with eight IPL seasons under his belt, couldn't praise the Impact Player rule enough. It's let young batters like him go after it without a care, grabbing way more shots at the big time. Attack freely. Shine aggressively.

Team backing's key too—Shreyas Iyer's been right there for him. Still, Prabhsimran knows consistency's what'll get him that India cap. He needs to deliver more. PBKS picked up steam off the rain-washed no-result against KKR anyway. Xavier Bartlett swung it early, snaring 2 wickets. KKR slumped to 25/2.

Babar Azam brushed off the Virat Kohli chatter right after Peshawar Zalmi nicked a 4-wicket PSL 2026 win, scraping home chasing 146 against Hyderabad Kingsmen. His 43 off 37 went early. Collapse followed. Iftikhar Ahmed's last-over hits got them over the line.

He quipped post-match that he's finished plenty of chases—no need for comparisons. PZ kept their nerve through that nail-biter. Solid start helped.

Talk of Kohli skips Babar's white-ball smarts. PSL moments like this show him cool when it counts.

ICC's rolled out the schedules for East Asia-Pacific Qualifiers. Over in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, the U19 Women’s T20 World Cup EAP Qualifier kicks off 8-13 April. Five teams. Round-robin format. Winner books a spot at the 2027 event.

Japan hosts the Men's T20 World Cup EAP Qualifier come May. Nine teams split into groups, then super six. Straight to the chase on who advances.

Sunil Gavaskar let rip at overseas IPL stars yesterday. He branded the league their personal cash cow—one they barely bother milking properly. Fitness excuses from Mitchell Starc, Matheesha Pathirana, and Cameron Green? Gavaskar wasn't buying it. Bowling just four overs? That's no sweat, he reckoned.

BCCI needs to clamp down hard, he argued. Overseas boards snag the IPL cash even as their players dodge international duties. For that fat payday, Gavaskar wants total buy-in. No half-measures.

Mumbai Indians coach Kieron Pollard’s dropping a timely warning about Rajasthan Royals’ 15-year-old opener Vaibhav Suryavanshi. Don’t pump up the kid sky-high, he’s saying—then ditch him when he flops, like so many do. That’s the trap with RR’s teenage gun, who’s already blasted 200 runs in four IPL games. Strike rate? A ridiculous 266.66.

He couldn’t stress patience enough for raw talents like this. “Biggest fear,” Pollard put it, “is building them up only to tear them down when things go wrong.” RR’s flying early, sure—fresh off knocking over MI and RCB. Suryavanshi didn’t blink. MI’s scraped one win from three. Now it’s RCB at Wankhede. Both still smarting.

Delhi Capitals skipper Axar Patel owns up to the grind of injecting Team India's culture into an IPL outfit. Tough ask, he says—better craft strategies that fit while clinging to those core values. DC's buzzing under his watch these days, right after Sameer Rizvi sparked back-to-back triumphs against MI and LSG.

Axar keeps it grounded. National pride? Sure. But T20 demands its own tweaks. He's steering this squad toward the playoffs, buoyed by hot starts—and Rizvi's pair of POTMs.

Lucknow Super Giants' Mohammed Shami just fired back at the chatter about his India return. He's a "labourer," he says—keeps grinding out those overs, injuries be damned. IPL 2026's seen him shine. Strong Ranji numbers back it up: 37 wickets lately. Sourav Ganguly's in his corner, too. Wants him alongside Jasprit Bumrah.

Shami owned LSG's 5-wicket victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Picture this: a tight 2/9 spell that strangled them. Collapse followed. They limped to 156/9. Rishabh Pant wrapped it up unbeaten on 68 off 50 balls.

Cooper Connolly burst onto the IPL 2026 scene. Unbeaten 72 off 44 balls for Punjab Kings versus Gujarat Titans—five fours, five sixes. The 22-year-old Aussie snagged Player of the Match on debut. Funny thing, he grew up idolizing Shaun Marsh, who pulled off a similar breakout for the same side way back.

Sticking to what he does best, Connolly paced it nicely at first. Then boom—big hits everywhere. That innings delivered PBKS a vital win. It lifts Shreyas Iyer's rebuild, the one packing in talents like Arshdeep Singh. Rain had washed out their opener against KKR at Eden Gardens. PBKS ended up handing over a point there. Connolly's already looking sharp.

Shreyas Iyer called Connolly's rampage against Rashid Khan 'surreal' after that thriller. Aakash Chopra's got PBKS pegged for playoffs with MI, DC, RCB. Connolly might just turn out to be their wildcard.

Delhi Capitals stuck with Sameer Rizvi over Sanju Samson in that gutsy retention move. And boy, IPL 2026's paying off big. The UP kid's smashed an unbeaten 70 chasing down Lucknow Super Giants. Then came 90 off 51 to beat Mumbai Indians. Back-to-back Player-of-the-Match nods. Fire.

Rizvi's holding up those dodgy chases with real guts and muscle—key wins for DC. Sure, he bagged a duck in that 1-run heartbreak against GT, where they posted 209/8 chasing 210. Didn't matter. His runs have fixed the middle order. Axar Patel's skippering the machine just fine.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board fired off a letter to the BCCI. They're chasing better cricket ties after that dust-up over Mustafizur Rahman's release from KKR. Nazmul Abedin Fahim from the BCB confirmed it—an email urging steady chit-chat before India and Bangladesh clash in September.

Sameer Rizvi's got Delhi Capitals fans buzzing in IPL 2026. After that rough patch at CSK—snapped up for Rs 8.4 crore, then let go for Rs 95 lakh—the Uttar Pradesh youngster's piling on the runs. Picture this: an unbeaten 70 against LSG. Then a match-winning 90 off 51 balls—7 fours, 7 sixes—ripping into Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chahar. Holding onto him instead of trading for Sanju Samson? Smart move.

Dropped a duck against GT in that heartbreaking 1-run defeat. Still, Rizvi's on a heater. Three IPL Player of the Match awards in a row now. Joins Kohli and Buttler in that rare club.