Punjab Kings (PBKS) were on the verge of having their third victory in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 but Shimron Hetmyer brought the unsighted twist in the tale. With 10 required off the last six balls, the Caribbean batter smashed two sixes after a couple of dot balls to hand Rajasthan Royals (RR) a 3-wicket win in Chandigarh on Saturday night. With this nail-biting win, RR became the first team to gain 10 points this season.
PBKS vs RR IPL 2024 Highlights
On the other hand, Punjab remained in the eighth spot with a second consecutive defeat at home. They have only four points in their kitty and a Net Run Rate of -0.218.
RR huffed and puffed their way to the victory target of 148 with a ball to spare. The idea to promote Tanush Kotian didn’t work for the Royals as the off-spinner from Mumbai could muster just 24 runs in 31 balls, registering the third-lowest strike-rate for RR in IPL history. His struggle was ended by comeback man Liam Livingstone to provide the opening breakthrough to Punjab.
Skipper Sanju Samson walked out to join Jaiswal and their brewing partnership gave the Royals fans of an easy win but Kasgiso Rabada broke the camaraderie, removing Jaiswal for a 28-ball 39. Once both openers were back in the hut, the Royals kept losing wickets in regular intervals until Hetmyer took things in his hands and sailed the ship safely to the shore.
The Rajasthan outfit required 49 runs off the last five overs, but they had to wait till the penultimate ball of the match to get over the line despite having power-hitters like Rovman Powell (11, 5b) and Shimron Hetmyer (27 not out, 10b, 1×4, 3×6) in their ranks.
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That equation came down to 10 off the final six balls after Hetmyer moussed Harshal Patel for a six and four, which the West Indian left-hander realised through a couple of sixes off pacer Arshdeep Singh in the last over.
Earlier, Avesh Khan and Keshav Maharaj exploited a sticky pitch to the hilt to restrict Punjab Kings to an underwhelming 147 for 8, sharing 4 wickets among each other. But Ashutosh Sharma (31, 16b), Jitesh Sharma (29, 24b) and Liam Livingstone (21, 14b) tried to force the pace but Punjab needed more than those pretty little cameos.
Their biggest hope on the day could have been the range-hitting ability of in-form Shahshank Singh but a feeble pull off Sen could not progress beyond Jurel at mid-wicket. With the cream of top-order back in the hut without any significant contribution, the PBKS required some hefty hand from Livingstone and Jitesh to get to even a par score.
Livingstone, who creamed Sen for a six and four off successive balls through mid-wicket, and Ashutosh, who smoked Avesh for two sixes in the 19th over, helped PBKS add 61 runs in the last five overs, but their effort came a wee bit late.
(With PTI Inputs)
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