Follow UsAfter the kind of drubbing they faced in the hands of Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday, it seemed like Rajasthan Royals were all but out of the tournament. Thankfully, they managed to put that game behind them and took those crucial two points tonight against a tactically inept Punjab side.
"I think at the end of the game, when Hetty was going strong we thought we will finish by 18.5. We have a quality team and it is a little shocking to see where we stand on the table," Sanju Samson, RR skipper, said.
After electing to field, Trent Boult gave the perfect start with a wicket in the first over, his seventh such wicket in IPL 2023. RR bowlers did a good job of tying the batters down in batter friendly conditions, until the last two overs, where they ended up conceding 46 runs. The end overs blitzkrieg help Punjab post a respectable 187 on the board.
Coming to their chase, Yashasvi Jaiswal continued his rich vein of form as he notched up yet another fifty, and broke yet another record. He broke the 15 year old of highest runs scored in an IPL season by an uncapped player, as he went past Shaun Marsh's tally of 616 runs.
"I have been talking about Jasiwal almost every game. He has shown so much maturity that it feels he has played 100 T20Is. With the ball, almost 90% of the times we feel Boult will take a wicket in the first over" Samson added, while talking about Jaiswal and Boult.
Shikhar Dhawan, PBKS skipper, also felt that the early wickets forced them to play defensively. Having lost three wickets in the powerplay, including that of the dangerous Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma and Sam Curran had no option but to nudge it around and play safe.
Even while defending the total, at no point in time did RR seem out of control with the required run rate. In a bid to get more wickets, all PBKS pacers bowled out before the final over, leaving Rahul Chahar to defend 9 off it.
"We lost too many wickets in the powerplay and that put us on the backfoot. But, Curran, Jitesh and Shahrukh got us back in the game."
"We have learnt a lot of things this season. I knew I had to take the game deep, so I wanted my best bowlers to bowl early, so Rahul had to bowl the last over. In the last game, I gave Harpreet the final over. It depends on the surface and the situation," Shikhar said.