KL Rahul
Punjab Kings increased their chances of making IPL Play-off with a five-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders as the captain’s effective death over bowling and smart batting KL Rahul And Shah Rukh Khan registered his crucial win in the Indian Premier League here on Friday.
Rahul scored 67 runs off 55 balls and shared a 70-run partnership with fellow opener. Mayank Agarwal (40) chased down the target of 166 runs with three balls to spare.
Shah Rukh played an impressive innings of 22 runs in 9 balls and ended the match with a six.
Venkatesh Iyer hit 67 and Nitish Rana hit 31 off 18 balls before Punjab Kings restricted KKR to 165 for seven.
Invited to bat, the in-form KKR batsmen controlled the proceedings for a large part of their innings and it was not some excellent death by chants Mohammed Shami (1/23) and Arshdeep Singh (3/32), KKR would have got a big score on the board.
Iyer and Rahul Tripathi (34 off 26 balls) shared a 72-run partnership, moving the ball around with ease, while Rana’s cameo was also crucial for KKR as the run-rate hit after two quick wickets at the time. happened.
The Punjab batsmen did not set the ground on fire at the start of the chase as they could only score 46 runs in the powerplay but did not lose a single wicket.
Of the two batsmen, Agarwal was hitting the ball at a good strike rate, while Rahul was going for a run-a-ball.
Varun Chakraborty separates the openers by getting Agarwal caught at extra cover Eoin Morgan, although it was a fierce shot.
Nicholas Pooran (12) was dropped to 1 by Tripathi in the same area but Chakraborty made sure it wasn’t a costly miss as he dismissed West Indies soon after.
The dew made it difficult for the bowlers to catch the ball, but the Punjab batsmen were still happy to get the ball around and get a great big shot in the middle.
Rahul picked up his half-century from a slow shot from Southee with a shot that cleared the square leg area.
KKR needed 45 runs in the last five overs. eden markram (18) Hit a huge six Sunil Narine But was caught out in the same over while Deepak Hooda (3) also died soon after.
It looked like Rahul hit a straight fielder, but the third umpire declared him not out. He was dismissed on the first ball of the final over but Shah Rukh completed the task of calming down a nervous dugout.
PBKS moved up to the fifth position in the table with 10 points while KKR finished fourth with the same number of points.
Earlier, left-arm pacer Arshdeep has been a top performer for Punjab this season and he dismissed Shubman Gill (7) again with a pitch-off delivery that breached the batsman’s defense in the third over. Gave.
Iyer, who reveled this season, continued his good run with some fluent drives on either side of the wicket, despite the ball stalling a bit before coming to the bat.
The positive attitude of the batsmen and the lack of control over the line by the Punjab fast bowlers meant that the run-rate kept rising for KKR.
This partnership was eventually broken by spinner Ravi Bishnoi, who got Tripathi caught in the deep. The leg-spinner also had an economical end with figures of two for 22 in four overs.
Iyer completed his half-century with a run off Allan and then hit a six to the West Indies bowler to complete the team’s century in the 13th over.
Two early wickets fell when Bishnoi got rid of Iyer for a big shot, and Shami trapped rival captain Eoin Morgan (2), who shuffled a bit towards the off side, but bowled a dipping ball. Missed the line which caught him in front. Wicket.
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