JAIPUR: At what should have been their fortress in this IPL season, the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, hosts Rajasthan Royals faced another disappointing defeat on Sunday evening.
A brilliant 76-run opening partnership between Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Suryavanshi set the tone for the 220-run chase. Despite Dhruv Jurel’s impressive 53 off 31 balls towards the end, the middle order’s poor performance led to Punjab Kings (PBKS) securing a 10-run victory, strengthening their playoff chances.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Left-arm spinner Harpreet Brar emerged as the game-breaker, returning exceptional figures of 4-0-22-3. The Royals’ innings began spectacularly, with Jaiswal and Suryavanshi reaching 50 in 3 overs, particularly targeting Arshdeep Singh and Marco Jansen for 39 runs in the initial two overs. Brar turned the tide by dismissing Vaibhav (40 off 15) with a full delivery, caught by Xavier Bartlett at mid-off.
Although Sanju Samson joined Jaiswal post-injury, the chase lost momentum when Brar removed Jaiswal (50 off 25) at long-off, followed by Riyan Parag (13 off 11). Earlier, despite PBKS’ top order struggling, their middle order delivered. Nehal Wadhera’s outstanding 70 off 37 balls from 34/3 steadied the innings, forming crucial partnerships with captain Shreyas Iyer and Shashank Singh. Wadhera’s innings ended in the 16th over when he was pouched by Shimron Hetmyer off the bowling of Akash Madhwal.
Shashank remained unbeaten on 59 off 30 balls, ensuring a strong finish. PBKS’ initial struggles saw Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh, and debutant Mitchell Owen departing early.
Tushar Deshpande, recently selected for India A, claimed two wickets. Arya (9 off 7) fell when he chipped a delivery that stuck in the pitch to Hetmyer at mid-off.
Prabhsimran went off like a firecracker smashing boundaries but he was strangled down the leg side by Deshpande and was caught behind. Debutant Kwena Maphaka’s expensive start (4, 4, 0, 6, 1) ended positively with Owen’s wicket (0 off 2). Later, Riyan Parag’s introduction proved effective when Iyer was caught by Jaiswal at long-off.
However, Royals will ponder how they messed up yet another chase. In this IPL, they have batted second nine times and have lost eight of those games. Curiously, the team, despite chasing proving to be its Achilles heel, has chosen to bat second in six of those nine games. Two wins of the three games that they have won have come batting first.
The eight losses that they have aggregated while batting second is the second joint most in a season.
The other team in that dubious list was Pune Warriors who managed to do it twice (2012 and 2013).. Brief Scores: Punjab Kings: 219 for 5 in 20 overs (Nehal Wadhera 70, Shreyas Iyer 30, Shashank Singh 59 not out; Tushar Deshpande 2/37 bt Rajasthan Royals: 209 for 7 in 20 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 50, Vaibhav Suryavanshi 40, Dhruv Jurel 53; Harpreet Brar 3/22, Azmatullah Omarzai 2/44) by 10 runs.
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