IPL 2024

English , Snippets , Sports - کھیل اور کھلاڑی , / Sunday, April 14th, 2024

 

Today it was Match 27 in IPL 2024 and it was a clash between the two sides from the northern part of India – Rajasthan Royals, which won the IPL title in the inaugural edition in 2008 and Punjab Kings, which is one of 3 teams along with RCB and Delhi Capitals, who have not so far tasted a IPL title win. The match started off with some controversy for Punjab Kings team , as they sent Sam Curran for Toss and to lead the team in the absence of the injured skipper Shikar Dhawan, ahead of their official vice captain Jitesh Sharma. Sanju Samson of Rajasthan Royals won the toss and due to the dew in the latter part of match expected at this time of the year in most grounds in India, he had no hesitation in asking Punjab Kings to take the first strike .

Punjab had a laborious start to the innings as the openers struggled to find the boundary ropes. The top order struggled to find their rhythm against some disciplined bowling from Rajasthan Royals bowlers, especially the experienced Trent Boult , Yuzi Chahal and the South Africa left armer Keshav Maharaj ( who is having a debut IPL season) and the score reached 70 for 5 by 13th over. Some lusty late order hitting from Livingstone and Ashutosh , helped Punjab Kings to reach 147 runs by 20 overs losing 8 wickets.

Chasing this moderate score, Rajastan Royals ( RR) had a decent start with their star opener Yashasvi Jaiswal coming in to some form in this match , and their new opener Kotian giving him a good company , in the absence of Jos Butler who is injured. They were 80-1 in 11 overs with captain Sanju also playing a brisk knock. RR’s most consistent batsman of the season so far Ryan Parag again batted well to score 23 runs in 18 balls, and RR was cruising up to say 15 overs. But an inspired spell from the South African paceman Rabada with good support from Sam Curran and Arshdeep, put the breaks on and wickets tumbled as well. However a great knock at the end from the Caribbean champion Hetmeyer who scored 27 not out off 10 balls and before that another Carribean Rowman Powel’s crucial innings 11 off 5 balls ensured that RR get over the line with a ball to spare with 3 wickets in hand.

It was a good low scoring match but there were a lot of fielding lapses from both the sides and quite a few batsmen from both the sides got out to poor shot selection . In my view, this wicket is not that difficult for a less than 150 runs score which the winning team ended up chasing in 20 overs.