The Punjab Kings’ Prabhsimran Singh became the first player from India without a cap to score 500 or more runs in a season. He is also the second uncapped player, after Shaun Marsh, to achieve this accomplishment for PBKS.
In the Qualifier 1 encounter against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Singh amassed 18 runs off of 10 balls. With his 18-run knock, Singh’s tournament total now stands at 517 runs.
The RCB’s batter made the pursuit appear easy, even though the movement and bounce made batting difficult. RCB reached the mark with 60 balls remained, the largest margin in playoff chases in terms of balls remaining, after Salt hit an undefeated 56 off just 27. Rajat Patidar completed it with a slog-sweep six. Shreyas Iyer, the captain of PBKS, was candid in his post-match analysis following the humiliating loss. He acknowledged the batting unit’s subpar day on the field after considering what went wrong.
“Not a day to forget, but got to go back to the drawing board. We lost a lot of wickets (in the first innings.) There’s a lot to go back and study on. I am not doubting on my decisions to be honest. Whatever we did in terms of planning, outside of the ground whatever (planning) we did, I think it was on point. Just that we couldn’t execute it on the field.”
Shreyas Iyer
Meanwhile, Shreyas Iyer stated that protecting such a low score was always difficult, especially against a quality batting lineup. He also mentioned that, given the bounce on the field, his team needed to be more flexible.
“Can’t even blame the bowlers, as it was a low total to defend. We got to work on our batting especially on this wicket. In all the games we have played here there has been some variable bounce. We can’t give such reasons because we are professionals at the end of the day and we have to bat according to the situation and we have to live up to it. We have lost the battle, but not the war.”
Shreyas Iyer
Suyash and Hazlewood both claimed three wickets, while Dayal added two. Salt snatched the game away from Punjab with the bat, even if they lost Virat Kohli early. When Punjab plays the winners of the Eliminator match (Gujarat Titans vs. Mumbai Indians) on June 1, they have another chance to go to the top match, while RCB will play the finals.
