On Monday, May 8, in the 53rd match of the tournament at the Eden Gardens, PBKS was defeated by KKR by five wickets on the final ball of their innings. Punjab decided to bat first, and in the first innings, they scored 179/7. In response, Jason Roy’s (38 off 24 balls) and Nitish Rana’s (51 off 38 balls) top-order contributions ensured that KKR were always in the game.
It required a splendid exertion from Andre Russell (42 off 23 balls) and Rinku Singh (21* off 10 balls), as the couple pursued down 56 runs off the last 28 conveyances. However, when Russell was run out on the fifth ball of the 20th over, the game came down to the wire. Rinku Singh played calmly and scored a four off the final ball to send his team to victory.
Despite losing, PBKS learned a few valuable lessons from this encounter. Albeit the establishment is put seventh on the focuses table, they are still in conflict for the end of the season games and will be hoping to win their three leftover apparatuses.
1) Rahul Chahar’s bowling
With the ball, the Punjab Kings’ standout performer was Rahul Chahar. The leg spinner returned with figures of 2/23 in four overs after taking wickets of and Nitish Rana in the middle overs. He was the most conservative among the bowlers who bowled something like two overs in the match.
Chahar had three wickets in ten matches at an economy rate of 8.32 and an average of 94.33, not the best season before this one. This match will give him some certainty going into the following three games against DC (home and away) and RR.
2) Lower order contributions
After Varun Chakravarthy bowled out Liam Livingstone, PBKS were struggling at 53/3 in 5.3 overs, but KKR were able to set a target of 180. They ensured that they maximized the runs off the two inexperienced bowlers at the death, Vaibhav Arora and Harshit Rana, by scoring 31 runs in their final two overs.
Rishi Dhawan, Shahrukh Khan and Haepreet Brar added 57 runs off only 28 balls, hitting six fours and three sixes. Knowing that their batting depth is pretty solid, perhaps this will allow players like Dhawan and Bhanuka to play with a little bit more intent. Their batting will be extremely potent if Sam Curran regains his form.
3) Shikhar Dhawan is among the runs
Shikhar Dhawan, captain of PBKS, got off to a flying start in the IPL by scoring 225 runs in his first three innings. Notwithstanding, he was controlled out of a couple matches because of a shoulder injury he supported against GT on April 13. Since his rebound, he had scores of 1(2), 28(15) and 30(20), several fast fire begins, which he neglected to gain by.
Dhawan scored 57 off 47 balls against KKR. Given his relatively low strike rate, it might appear to be a poor performance on the surface. In any case, the following best score among the main 6 PBKS players was a 18-ball 21 from Jitesh Sharma. In order for his team to have a chance of reaching a competitive total, Dhawan had to keep an end together.
However, in order to maximize output at the top of the order, Dhawan will undoubtedly try to score more quickly in the upcoming matches. His form will be crucial if PBKS are to reach the playoffs. His game does not appear to have any obvious weaknesses or lack of intent.