Indian cricket star Rinku Singh defies rain with five-ball assault
Indian cricketer Rinku Singh scored 26 runs from just five balls, pushing his team ahead moments before heavy rain stopped the game. Cricket’s rain rules then gave the Meerut Mavericks a five-run victory.
The Mavericks were chasing 184 against the Lucknow Falcons in India’s Uttar Pradesh T20 League when rain began threatening the match in Lucknow. They had lost three players inside the first two overs and still needed 59 runs from the final five when their captain took control, according to SportsTiger.
In the 17th over, Singh hit Navneet Kumar for 26 runs in five balls. Then heavy rain halted play with Meerut on 154 for six – five runs above the revised target they needed to win.
The cricketer specialises in batting near the end, when little time remains and teams need runs quickly. Meerut bowler Kartik Tyagi said his captain «almost comes in the top five batters» worldwide in that role, praising his ability to change games from difficult positions in comments reported by ANI.
One team. One dream. One family. 💙🏏⁰We are the Meerut Mavericks. 🫂🔥 pic.twitter.com/7TWyR73b0N
— MeerutMavericks (@Meerutmavericks) August 20, 2026
Five balls beat the weather
The Duckworth-Lewis-Stern formula is used in cricket when rain prevents a match from finishing. It works out how much of the game is left, how many batters are out, and what the batting side should have scored at the interruption.
A team above that benchmark wins if the game cannot resume; one below it loses. The International Cricket Council describes DLS as its method for deciding interrupted matches and recalculating targets when playing time is lost.
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Singh’s burst moved Meerut from the wrong side of that calculation to the right one just before the rain became too heavy. He finished unbeaten with 55 runs from 24 balls, including six sixes, as the Mavericks secured their third consecutive victory and moved to the top of the competition, according to a match report.
The 28-year-old first made headlines in 2023 when he hit five sixes in a row in the final over to win an Indian Premier League match for Kolkata Knight Riders. It was a less high-profile outing, in a state competition launched in 2023 as a stepping stone to the IPL.
