India, June 2 -- Three nights ago in Mullanpur would have been one of the longest nights of Shreyas Iyer's career. The Punjab Kings captain, despite leading his team to the top of the IPL 2025 points table, endured one of the toughest losses of the season. PBKS, facing the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Qualifier 1, were shredded to pieces. PBKS's top order was wrecked, so much so that at one stage, getting to even 100 looked a herculean task. Although somehow, they breached it, the result of the match was already a foregone conclusion by then. RCB annihilated them by eight wickets and booked themselves a place in the final.

Mumbai Indians, on the other hand, were carving their own redemption story, and after RCB, if there was one team t...