Chase or defend? What IPL 2026 early trends indicate after first over

New Delhi: The new season of the Indian Premier League is in full swing. After five days of competition, all ten teams played one game each. IPL 2026 started on a high note, with the first two games of the weekend registering a total of over 200 runs, but the next three games of the week saw a drastic change in scoring, with all games scoring at low to moderate levels.One trend that has emerged from these five games is that regardless of whether the total score is low, medium or high, the chasing team has won. It will be interesting to see if this continues throughout the tournament. If so, throwing the ball may become increasingly important for every team.

All five games so far have been played under lights. However, with limited daytime games and only two games scheduled per team, dew will not be a factor and the chase advantage may be reduced.This pattern worries the bowlers. Except for the last minute match between Kings XI Punjab and Gujarat Titans, the rest of the games were basically one-sided chases. Even on Wednesday, when Delhi Capitals were chasing 141 on the power play of Lucknow Supergiants to reduce the deficit to 26/4, the partnership of Samir Rizvi and Tristan Stubbs sealed the win with 17 balls to spare.Intense chases add to the excitement, but one-sided chases often make the game boring for fans.Let’s take a deeper look at the trends from IPL 2026 so far:Match 1: RCB beat SRH by 6 wicketsDefending champions RCB take on SRH in the IPL 2026 opener at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Coming on, SRH recovered from 29/3 through Ishan Kishan (80 off 38) and Heinrich Klaasen (31), while Aniket Verma’s 43 pushed them to 201/9. In reply, despite early setbacks, Virat Kohli (69 off 38) and Devdutt Padikkal (61 off 26) seamed a 101-run stand, with RCB chasing it in just 15.3 overs.Match 2: MI beat KKR by 6 wicketsKKR posted a ride rate of 220/4 with Ajinkya Rahane’s 67 and Angkrish Raghuvanshi’s 51. But Michigan openers Rohit Sharma (78) and Ryan Rickelton (81) put on 148 in 12 overs to make the chase simple and they came home with 5 balls to spare.Match 3: RR beat CSK by 8 wicketsIn Guwahati, RR bowlers Jofra Archer and Nandre Burger defeated CSK by 127 runs. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi then smashed a staggering 52 off 17 balls to join Yashasvi Jaiswal for 75 as RR chased down the target in just 12.1 overs.Match 4: PBKS beat GT by three wicketsGT’s contribution in the entire order stood at 162/6. PBKS looked comfortable at 110/2 but collapsed to 118/6 on the trigger of Prasidh Krishna. However, Cooper Connolly’s unbeaten 72 secured a tense final victory.Match 5: DC beat LSG by six wicketsLSG were bowled out for 141, starring Lungi Ngidi and T Natarajan. DC fell to 26/4 but Sameer Rizvi (70) and Tristan Stubbs (39) sealed the win with an unbeaten 119-run stand at a win-loss ratio of 17.1 overs.Early signs suggest that Chase is the king of IPL 2026 – but the bigger question is, will this continue?