KL Rahul's 152 was the night an Indian finally hit 150 in the IPL, and his side still lost

Rahul's unbeaten 67-ball 152 was the highest individual IPL score ever made by an Indian. He still ended up on the losing side. There has rarely been a more painful great innings.

April 25, 2026

For 19 seasons, the IPL had given us batting that bordered on the absurd, but never an Indian who put 150 next to his name in a single innings. KL Rahul finally did it on Saturday in Delhi. He hit 152 not out off 67 balls. He hit 16 fours and nine sixes. He played, by every measurable standard, an innings of his life. And his team still lost the game by six wickets.

A record nobody quite expected

For nearly two decades, only Brendon McCullum's 158 not out and Chris Gayle's 175 not out had cleared the 150 mark in the IPL. Rahul's name now joins them, ahead of every Indian batter who came before. Rishabh Pant's 128 had been the highest score by a Delhi player; Rahul broke that tonight with a 47-ball century that, for an hour or so, looked like it had won the match all on its own. Add in his 220-run stand with Nitish Rana, who himself made 91 off 44, and Delhi posted 264 for 2, the kind of total that historically wins a T20 by 60.

It did not win them this one. Not even close.

There is no defence on this pitch

Punjab Kings chased 265 down in 18.5 overs. Prabhsimran Singh's 76 off 26 and Priyansh Arya's 43 off 17 took the chase out of Delhi's hands inside the powerplay, and Shreyas Iyer's 71 not out closed it out. The previous highest successful chase in IPL history, also Punjab's, was overhauled. So was the equivalent record in all of men's T20 cricket. Whatever Delhi were defending, it turned out, was not defendable.

That is what makes Rahul's innings so strange to think about. In 2008, 200 in a T20 was a wild outlier. By 2024, 220 was a chaseable target on the right deck. In 2026, 264 is a starting point. Rahul's 152 might be the highest score an Indian has ever made in this competition, and you could argue, with a straight face, that it was not even the most decisive batting performance in his own match.

Maybe that is the read on the modern IPL. Records will keep coming, and they will keep arriving on losing scorecards. Rahul will live with this one for a while. He will have made history; he will not have made the points table look any kinder. The pitch, the bats, the boundaries: none of it cares about narrative anymore. Some nights, you can play the innings of your life and still walk off second.