Punjab Kings survived a stunning onslaught from Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson who smashed a manic 119 almost to take his side over the line. However, Arshdeep Singh held his nerve in the final over to give Punjab a four-run win. Earlier, it was KL Rahul’s 90 and Deepak Hooda’s 64 that helped Punjab get to 221.
It was an absolute humdinger, and it was almost deja vu for the Punjab Kings. RR pulled off a miraculous and a record chase of 224 at Sharjah in the first game between these two sides last season. And they almost did it again, this time.
Sanju Samson went berserk and single-handedly took RR close to the finish line before faltering on the final ball off the game. There was drama throughout the game, and the two sides (largely Samson for RR) displayed some breath-taking batting in the span of 40 overs.
Samson won the toss and inserted PBKS into bat first on his captaincy debut. And it was debutant Chetan Sakariya who opened the bowling and bowled some excellent lines and lengths. While Mayank Agarwal did get off to a brisk start, Sakariya managed to get the breakthrough for Rajasthan as he had Agarwal caught behind for 14. Chris Gayle joined skipper KL Rahul in the middle, and the duo stitched a wonderful 67-run stand for the second wicket.
Both batters looked fluent and were finding the fence regularly. But just when Gayle was looking dangerous, Riyan Parag gave RR a much-needed breakthrough as the Universe Boss holed out to long-on where Ben Stokes took a superb catch.
Punjab’s score read 89/2 at the stage (10th over), and they pulled out a slight surprise as Deepak Hooda walked out to the middle ahead of Nicholas Pooran. Hooda took a few balls to get his eye in as Rahul notched up 22nd IPL half-century, and it came off just 30 balls. Hooda was batting on eight off seven at that stage, and he cut loose. He smashed the RR bowlers all over the Wankhede Stadium and treated them with disdain. Every bowler that came into the attack went the distance.
In fact, he was even dropped on 39 in the 15th over by Jos Buttler, who misjudged a catch running back from covers, and RR paid the price. Hooda brought up his third IPL fifty, which came off a mere 20 balls. Rahul played second fiddle perfectly as he put away the bad balls and kept feeding the strike to Hooda, who was striking them beautifully. Hooda fell for 64 in the 18th over as a fabulous 105-run stand came to an end. Morris was the man who got the breakthrough, and he had Nicholas Pooran caught at short fine-leg a couple of balls later as Sakariya took a stunning catch. Just when it looked like 225-230 was on the cards, Sakariya bowled an excellent final, giving away just five runs and picking up a couple of wickets. That kept Punjab down to 221.
It was a huge ask. But the wicket was a belter, and there was dew expected as well. But RR didn’t get off to the best of starts. Mohammed Shami had Ben Stokes top-edging one, and the latter was out for a three-ball duck while Manan Vohra didn’t last long as Arshdeep Singh had him caught and bowled. Two balls later, Samson was dropped, and Rahul dropped a straight-forward chance behind the stumps. Things looked bleak for the 2008 IPL champions at that stage.
However, Samson and Jos Buttler resurrected the innings and counter-attacked. The duo added 40 runs in 25 balls to get the run rate towards ten before Jhye Richardson foxed Buttler with a beautiful slower delivery. Samson continued on his merry way and constantly found the boundaries. Shivam Dube looked good and struck a couple of lusty blows before Arshdeep had the all-rounder caught at long-off.
Riyan Parag came out swinging and struck the ball well as he raced away to 25 off ten balls before a Shami bouncer had him caught behind. Samson had flown his way to 83 at that stage, and with 47 needed off 22 balls, RR faced a stiff ask. However, their new skipper went ballistic in the 18th over as he got 19 runs off Richardson. In the process, Samson had smashed his way to a stunning hundred, which was his third in the IPL. In fact, it was the first by a player on captaincy debut in the IPL, and it was also the first ton of the 2021 season.
With 21 runs required off the last two overs, Riley Meredith, who was having a tough day with the ball, bowled an excellent penultimate over as he conceded just eight runs. 13 runs were needed in the final over, which came down to 11 of three before Samson struck a meaty blow. He denied Chris Morris a single off the second-last ball before he holed out to deep cover on the last ball as Arshdeep held his nerve.
Brief Scores
Punjab Kings 2216 (Rahul 91, Hooda 64, Gayle 40, Sakariya 3/31, Morris 2/41) beat Rajasthan Royals 217/7 (Samson 119, Buttler 25, Parag 25, Arshdeep 3/35, Shami 2/33) by four runs
