Match Details

PBKS vs RR 8th Match, IPL 2023

team important image
RR
192-720.0
Punjab Kings won by 5 runs 🏆
PBKS
20.0197-4
team image
18th Over:
1
6
4
1
1
6
 
= 19
Last Over:
0
wd
4
6
4
1
2
 
= 18
This Over:
1
2
1W
1b
1
4
 
= 10

Player of the Match

Nathan Ellis Logo
Nathan Ellis Jersy
Nathan Ellis
Punjab Kings
4/30
RRRR - 2nd Innings
SessionOpenPASS
6 Over 5957
10 Over 9289
15 Over 139124
PBKSPBKS - 1st Innings
SessionOpenPASS
6 Over 5263
10 Over 9792
15 Over 138152
20 Over 212197

Commentary

All
Highlights
Overs
W
6s
4s
Inn 1
Inn 2
Milestone
Time to sign off on what was a great game of cricket. A nail-biter, probably the first of this IPL with PBKS holding their nerves to clinch a victory. A lot to ponder for RR before heading to their next game. For now, I am AkshayaKrishna Polya, signing off on behalf of my co-commentators Arijit Kundu and Ninaad Dixit, who, alongside our star scorer/analyst Paras Yadav brought you every bit of this mouth-watering fixture. We will meet again and until then, it's a goodbye from me and my teammates.
Nathan Ellis (Player of the Match): "Ah, yeah, one of those days, where you can bowl potentially not to your best but get rewards. Probably some other guys on the side, deserve awards but stoked to get some rewards. Nice one to get it.

To do ball by ball. It's more about one ball at a time. I am not some who will get swiped about what to bowl in the fifth over or in the 10th over. In T20I cricket, every ball counts. It's more to be in the moment, easier said than done. 

You wanna try to focus on drying the ball. The ball was wet and the best way to get to do was to bowl cross seam. That was my percentage ball. Very happy to see Sam get us over the line."
Player of the Match: Nathan Ellis for his four-for
Shikhar Dhawan (Punjab Kings Captain): "Yes, absolutely there were nervous moments. But I was keeping calm and discussed with the bowlers about the plan. There was dew, you have to respect that. I am happy with the total we put on the board. We scored 197 and then our bowlers gave us early wickets before Nathan Ellis came and bowled well. It was a full team effort. Switch Hit (haha, replies to the question about the turning point in the game). I doing my best to increase the strike rate. This time we have got a big batting lineup. These two games we were playing well. Starting with Prabhsimran Singh and then I played according to the situation. We will try to keep the momentum going with intent and keep the aggression going." 
Active catch of the Match: Jos Buttler
Longest 6 award: Riyan Parag
Most 4s in the Match: Shikhar Dhawan
Most Valuable asset of the Match: Shikhar Dhawan
Game-Changer of the Match: Nathan Ellis
Electric Striker of the Match: Dhruv Jurel
12:01 AM IST | Time for the post-match presentation ceremony.
Sam Curran (Punjab Kings): "When it comes to those situations you just gotta do or die. If you know your yorker, you're gonna be okay but if you don't then those are the moments you practice for. When you got such quality hitters and new rule as well where the batters keep coming. I guess its those moments you wanna be in. Somedays it would work and somedays it won't but luckily we won today.

It was strange how they changed their ball in the first innings when it was a little bit wet and I was trying to get our ball changed but I don't know how it really works when they can change their ball and we can't. I guess we have to get on with it and sorry for slowing the play down with the tail but that's what happened.

Prabhsimran has been amazing. I was with him at Punjab four years ago. He was very young and he is still young. The way he has been playing with Shikhar is amazing and the team got off to a good start. Hope its a start of a great campaign for him and hopefully the runs keep coming because he is an amazing player.

Well I guess the way we batted there I was happy just sitting in the dugout when the boys were batting beautifully. I was ready to go. There's games where I will go up and there will be games where I won't so all that matters and we won our first two games is which we came here to do.

Its amazingly hard. You try and dip balls in water and train with it. In India the dew is very big in all grounds so its incredibly hard to hold the seam. You try to get a cross seam but that's not a natural ball to bowl a yorker so maybe its something to work on. Its extremely tough but everyone's gotta do it so that's no real complaining. We just gotta keep getting better because the batters and bowlers are getting better. That's why this is the best tournament in the world."
Sanju Samson (Rajasthan Royals Captain): "I think bowling to be very honest - it was a very good track to bat on. There was nothing to bowl much. They had a very good powerplay but our bowlers tried to vary the length and lines but it was reasonably good to pull them a bit from the start they got. It was a good job by our bowlers.

Jos was not fully fit while he took the catch. There were two spinners, a left-arm spinner, and a leg spinner. Therefore we had to keep a leftie, therefore Devdutt was sent.

He[Dhruv Jurel] has been there with us for the last two years. The management worked a lot with him. When you come to the IPL, generally there is a one-week camp. But this time there has been five-six weeks camp. They used to come to the Rajasthan Royals camp in between domestic tournaments and have been practicing 100 balls daily. I think dew has been there, in the first innings as well. I think we need to be prepared well from the next matches."
Rajasthan Royals won the toss and decided to bowl first in the maiden IPL game at Guwahati. Punjab Kings' opening batters came out all guns blazing to destroy the new ball bowlers of RR consisting of Trent Boult, and KM Asif, and it was especially Prabhsimran Singh with the assault. The swashbuckling batter carved away 7 fours and 3 sixes to his maiden IPL fifty in a blink of an eye and scored 60 off 34 balls. He was the first one to go as Jos Buttler took a screamer in the bowling of Jason Holder. Before getting out, Prabhsimran and Shikhar Dhawan blistered 90 runs for the opening wicket, with the latter anchoring the innings throughout.

However, Dhawan hit a ball hard straight into the team’s previous match hero, Bhanuka Rajapaksa’s hand and the victim left the field straightaway, playing no further part in the game. But Dhawan batted through the innings and was unbeaten at 86 off 56 balls, including 9 fours and 3 sixes, which helped the side post a total of nearly 200. In the process of this responsible innings, the Punjab skipper achieved a rare feat of becoming only the third batter in the history of IPL to score 50 fifty-plus knocks.

Amidst this, Jitesh Sharma played a handy cameo of 27 off 16 deliveries, adding 68 runs alongside Dhawan. PBKS lost a couple of quick wickets in a span of a few deliveries between the 16th and 17th over. While Jitesh was taken care of by Yuzvendra Chahal, Sikandar Raza was bamboozled by a brilliant carrom ball delivered by Ravichandran Ashwin to get bowled out.

Shahrukh Khan (11 off 10) didn’t get going to give PBKS a powerful finish but had a decent partnership with Dhawan of 37 runs for the fourth wicket, with the latter shifting his gears as Punjab Kings posted 197/4 in their allotted 20 overs.

For RR, while the rest of the bowlers- Boult, Asif and Chahal were taken to the cleaners, 
Jason Holder and Ashwin bowled terrific spells stopping the momentum of the opposition in the middle overs besides scalping three wickets between them.
In what was a drama-filled run chase from RR, they failed to chase the game despite coming close to the target. To everyone's surprise, Ravi Ashwin opened the batting with Yashasvi Jaiswal instead of Jos Buttler. Though Jaiswal hammered a couple of glorious shots, his stay was short at the crease. Arshdeep Singh made the new ball count by dismissing both the openers without much on the board.

Coming at number three, Buttler (19 off 11) clubbed a few but he too as Jaiswal cannot take the innings deeper and fell in a streaky manner to Nathan Ellis, who had a dream day with the ball in hand as he decimated RR with his superb spell of 4-0-30-4. It included the wickets of Sanju Samson, Devdutt Padikkal and Riyan Parag apart from the wicket of Jos the Boss. Though these didn't come at regular intervals, Ellis struck at crucial junctures of the match to push the home side onto the back foot.

Amidst the clever spell of Ellis, RR batters involving Samson (42 off 25) and Parag (20 off 12) were hitting them cleanly to score a few handy runs while Padikkal (21 off 26) struggled during his stay at the crease putting the team in trouble.

With 74 runs needed off the final five overs, Jurel (32* off 15) and Hetmyer (36 off 18) lifted their side and gave them a chance in the match by smashing the bowlers left right and centre with a quick-fire 62-run partnership for the 7th wicket. But with the run out of Hetmyer in the third ball of the last over bowled by the tournament's expensive buy Sam Curran, RR's hopes almost died. Curran bowled well and conceded just 10 runs off the last over and restricting the hosts to 192/7 to win two in two games. 
11:44 PM IST | Punjab Kings keep their nerve as they hold onto a game that was fluctuating like a see-saw throughout! PBKS win by 5 runs as Sam Curran defends 16 runs off the final over with the impressive Dhruv Jurel and Shimron Hetmyer at the crease for the major part of it
OVER 20
Rajasthan Royals
192/7
Dhruv Jurel
32(15)
Jason Holder
1(1)
Sam Curran
0-44(4.0)
19.6 S Curran to D Jurel
4 FOUR RUNS!! But Punjab Kings get home by 5 runs! Fuller delivery on the pads, Jurel shuffles across and flicks past Rishi Dhawan at short fine leg. He doesn't bother chasing the ball allowing it to run away to the fence. Excellent performance from Jurel but it isn't enough to guide the Royals home.
If Curran can bowl a legal delivery here, then PBKS will earn two points.
Commentary