Wadhera, Shashank and Brar take PBKS closer to playoffs
PBKS score sixth 200-plus total of the season from 34/3; spinner Brar then negates sensational start by Jaiswal, Suryavanshi for a 10-run win in Jaipur
Kolkata: Rajasthan Royals don’t do run chases very well. But even the most pessimistic fan would have reason to be hopeful when the following situations unfold. First over, Arshdeep Singh conceded 22 runs. Three overs done, Royals were 51 for no loss. Powerplay done, the score stood at 89/1. Fourteen fours and five sixes had brought down the asking rate from 11 to 9.36, thanks to a 76-run partnership between Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Suryavanshi in which only two runs had not come from boundaries.
To lose from this situation was quite impossible, but the Royals did exactly that in Jaipur on Sunday. Consolidating such a start was the most sensible approach but Punjab Kings too kept hitting back till the Royals faltered. Two points from the 10-run victory now takes Punjab Kings to 17 points and puts them on the verge of IPL playoffs qualification.
Orchestrating the slowdown was spinner Harpreet Brar, conceding 22 runs in his four overs but more importantly dismissing Jaiswal, Suryavanshi and Riyan Parag. First to fall was Suryavanshi, getting a leading edge after scoring 40 off just 15 balls. Looking to go over long-off, Jaiswal got the toe end to a fuller ball and was caught. Parag, the anchor Royals have always relied on, tried to take on a length ball from Brar but it went straight and took an inside edge onto the stumps. “The way the wicket was playing and they were batting, the plan was to not give a boundary or give them easy balls,” said Brar. The Royals clearly didn’t have a fallback plan.
Yet they persisted for a while, warding off Brar and Yuzvendra Chahal and trying to compensate against the pacers. Azmatullah Omarzai conceded five runs in the first over before going for 17 runs. He conceded 11 runs in the 16th over to Shimron Hetmyer and Dhruv Jurel and Royals seemed to be clawing their way back. Next over, Arshdeep conceded 14 and it was getting tighter. Omarzai got Hetmyer second ball of the 18th over but with Jurel and Shubham Dubey still at the wicket, nothing was impossible.
“It definitely felt tight because the ball was flying everywhere,” said PBKS pacer Marco Jansen. “For us, it was just about staying in the game. We knew 2 or 3 or 4 good overs will bring their run-rate down or run-rate up for them.” Thirty runs from the last two overs are gettable. But here’s where Arshdeep weighed in, conceding just one boundary in an eight-run over that essentially meant Royals had to score a boundary off every ball in the last over. But Jansen, who had conceded 49 in three overs, didn’t blink.
That this win came in a match PBKS equalled the record for most 200-plus totals (six) in a season despite being 34/3 won’t be lost on them. Priyansh Arya didn’t get stuck in, neither did Prabhsimran Singh despite a promising 10-ball 21. Mitchell Owen didn’t open his account. At that point, 219 looked impossible. However, again Punjab Kings’ Indian talent shone. Nehal Wadhera hammered 70 off 37 as Shreyas Iyer tried to hold one end but it was the finishing of Shashank Singh — 59* off 30— that spelt out the difference.
Shashank could have been dismissed for 11 off 10 had Jurel not misjudged his position at the long-off boundary while trying to take the catch. Once he got that life, Shashank upped the ante, moving across the stumps to take on short fine-leg repeatedly. To counter the yorkers, he stood almost two feet outside the crease, a move RR couldn’t counter well. From 147/4 in 15 overs, PBKS had added 72 in the last five overs.
