In the fourth match of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021, Punjab Kings snatched the victory from Rajasthan Royals despite the latter's Sanju Samson played valiantly to push the team towards a win. PBKS has won the match by mere 4 runs in Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium on Monday.
Earlier in the evening, the toss was won by RR, who opted to field first and received the high run-target of 222 from PBKS. However, in Sanju Samson's captaincy, the team strived hard to win the match, could not meet the challenging score as they were restricted to 217 for 7 by Punjab.
On the last ball of the 20th over, Punjab's Arshdeeep Singh and Jhye Richardson showed a remarkable performance to stop their opponents from winning the match.
When RR came in the middle to kick start their chance, it witnessed a cold start as Ben Stokes had to depart for 0 on the third ball in the first over by Mohammed Shami. RR's second opener Manan Vohra, could not keep the pace for longer and departed for 12. The game of RR was revived by Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler, and Shivam Dube.
Buttler and Dube shared a partnership of 25 and 23 respectively while Samson on his captaincy debut gave a nail-biting competition and scored 119 which went in vain.
For the last 13 runs, Punjab's captain KL Rahul asked Arshdeep for bowling, who managed 0,1,1,6,0 and Samson's departure on the match-deciding ball.
Notably, at the beginning of the match, PBKS bowlers did not seem to pull the strings but, eventually got it all back. Mohammed Shami and Arshdeep Singh bagged a couple of wickets each for Punjab.
Punjab'sstar players including KL Rahul (91), Deepak Hooda (64), and Chris Gayle (40) assisted the team to make a challenging target for RR.
Rahul's fifty was his 22nd in IPL while Hooda scored his 3rd half-century.
Chetan Sakariya, making his IPL debut, got 3 wickets for 31 runs from his 4 overs while the expensive player in the IPL history Chris Morris bagged a couple of wickets for the Royals.
Rajasthan Royals will be seen playing the next game against Delhi Capitals on April 15 while Punjab Kings will next face Chennai Super Kings at the same venue on April 16.