MOHALI: Punjab won their second match against Rajasthan Royals of the season by defeating them away and home leg. With some good bowling in the death overs, Punjab clinched the victory by 12 runs.
It was Rajasthan Royals who won the toss and elected to bowl. Both teams made 3 changes. There were 2 debutants in the game. One from Punjab and other from Rajasthan. Ashton Turner and Arshdeep Singh were 2 the debutants from Rajasthan Royals and Kings X1 Punjab respectively. While for Punjab, Curran, Tye and Sarfraz were left out and they brought Mujeeb, Arshdeep, and Miller and for Rajasthan Smith, Livingston and gowtham makes way for Turner, Ish Sodhi, and Stuart Binny.
Batting first, Punjab started off nicely as Gayle started in a brisk fashion. But on the other hand, KL Rahul was struggling to find his timings And in the first Powerplay, they only managed to score 39 runs and also lost the key wicket of Chris Gayle who scored 30 runs off 22 deliveries with 2 fours and 2 sixes. Later, Mayank Aggarwal joined KL Rahul. He was looking good and made 26 runs off just 12 balls before getting dismissed by Ish Sodhi. KL Rahul needs to accelerate as he was on 8 runs off 19 deliveries. He got his first boundary in the 12th over of the match.
And after Strategic Timeout both the batsmen lashed on Ish Sodhi and made 19 runs in the 14th over of the match. After that, the momentum got shifted in favor of Punjab as they snatched another 19 runs over. Rahul completed his 14th half century of the IPL before getting dismissed on 52 runs. He took 47 balls to reach there with 3 fours and 2 sixes. Punjab collapsed as in the span 12 balls they lost 3 wickets which also included the key wicket of David Miller who batted brilliantly for his 40 runs in 27 balls with 2 fours and 2 sixes. In the last over, Ashwin scored brilliant 17 runs off just 4 balls and helped Punjab to put 182 runs on the board. Jofra Archer was the standout bowler for Rajasthan with 4-0-15-3
The visitor came with the new opening pair of Buttler-Tripathi. Buttler started off well but departed in the 4th over by Arshdeep Singh on 23 runs. It was his maiden wicket of IPL. Rahul Tripathi was joined by Sanju Samson. Meanwhile, Mujeeb Ur Rehman injured his shoulder while fielding at deep point. He was taken out of the field. They both played well by rotating strike and hitting boundaries. At the end of 10 overs, Royals were 89-1. They were in a great position as they now required 94 runs in the second half of the inning. But in the 12th over they lost the wicket of Sanju Samson. The momentum got shifted towards Punjab as the scoring rate of Rajasthan falls.
Rahane and Tripathi tried to play some big shots but didn’t get the timing right. Meanwhile, Rahul Tripathi completed his 4th IPL fifty off 44 balls. He was then dismissed by Ashwin. And now the visitors required 56 runs in the last 4 overs of the match. To win the game they now required some huge sixes from Ashton Turner who has earlier helped his team Australia to win the match against India has to step up for the Royals. But the debutant got dismissed on 0.
Jofra Archer was sent ahead of Stuart Binny and he falls on 1. RR required a miracle to score 50 in final 3. Stuart Binny sent some balls in the crowd but didn’t let his team to victory. He scored 33 runs in just 11 balls with 2 fours and 3 sixes. Rahane made 26 in 21 balls.
For his Allround show, Ravichandran Ashwin was adjourned the Man Of the Match award.