Punjab Kings pulled off an excellent win over Royal Challengers Bangalore to bounce back into the tournament on Friday. Both teams made a series of changes to their teams, Punjab opened with Prabhsimran Singh who came into the team instead of Mayank Agarwal. However, he didn’t last long, got out for just seven after being asked to bat first.
Chris Gayle and KL Rahul then smashed all-round the park. The latter played a close spectator to Gayle’s destruction. He made 46 from 24 with six fours and two sixes. After his dismissal, RCB came back by grabbing Pooran, Shahrukh and Hooda soon. The team then found themselves at 118/5 from 99/2. KL Rahul then took the team from the horror to 179. He remained unbeaten at 91 from just 57 deliveries.
In return, Padikkal got out after hitting a six off Meredith. Kohli and Patider then re-built the innings but they were slow. The run-rate that kept ticking added pressure on both players.
As they looked for runs, the wickets began to fall. Brar, who was playing his first match of IPL 2021, removed Kohli, Maxwell in consecutive deliveries and came back to dismiss de Villiers as well. He was the star of the night and ended his spell by 3 for 19.
The team couldn’t recover from that and went down badly. In the end, Harshal Patel and Kyle Jamieson put on a show that took the team a bit closer to the target, in a way it was important for the net run rate.
Patel made 31 from 13 while Jamieson made 11-ball 16. The team ended their 20 overs with 145 runs, giving PBKS a massive win by 34 runs. This is their third consecutive win over RCB and all the three came because of KL Rahul’s brilliance. The skipper had a ton, half-century and then 91 today.
Vale, Professor Deano | Dean Jones