Despite the disappointment of losing, PBKS would be happy with their openers, Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya, whose half-centuries helped them reach the intimidating total under difficult circumstances. In particular, the way they scored the runs. They added 120 for the first wicket, PBKS’ lone century stand in IPL, and were practically preoccupied with keeping their shape and relying more on timing rather than overhitting. Prabhsimran hit 83 off 49 and Arya scored 69 off 35, and PBKS was certain they had scored above-par even though the final six overs yielded just 42.
Even though Punjab Kings scored 201 on a slow surface, the chase was wiped out in Kolkata by late-evening thunder rains, and they had to settle for just one point. They will feel let down since they put a lot of effort into a pitch that was deemed “very, very slow” by the consensus. The trailing Kolkata Knight Riders climbed up to No. 7 with seven points from nine games, while PBKS went up to No. 4 with the one point.
Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine took 74 off the eight overs of spin on the slow track, which had grip for bowlers bowling into the pitch. The slower-ball specialist for KKR, Harshit Rana, was only permitted to bowl two overs for 27 runs.
When Prabhsimran faced the spinners, he took 41 off of the 22 balls they bowled.
Specifically, Arya was astute in his targeting of the bowlers. He only took 19 off 15 balls of spin and 50 off 20 balls of pace. Before going after the pace bowlers, both of them were measured in the first few overs to get acclimated to the pitch’s pace. Arya’s first four fours were hit between mid-off and cover, demonstrating his preferred timing. Prabshimran had trouble early on, reaching just 34 off 32 at one point.
Prabhsimran saved his innings with a bold switch-hit six against Narine, which also condemned Narine to a 22-run over. In all T20 cricket matches, his lowest score was 23. Shreyas Iyer only managed five runs in a 40-run partnership with Prabhsimran, who hit 49 off the final 17 balls he faced.
The fact that it was difficult to strike the death overs simply gave PBKS more confidence. Narine and Varun gave up just 13 runs in their last overs, Andre Russell was able to reverse-swing, and Vaibhav Arora got traction by bowling slower balls. We were never able to find out, but PBKS was certain there wouldn’t be any dew either.
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