Punjab Kings batting is thrill a minute when it comes off. It has on four occasions this IPL where they posted 180 plus scores, winning three of those games. The flip side of such a high risk, high reward game is there will be days when things won t go to plan. Their batting nosedived on Wednesday as their power hitters fell for a string of low scores to be bowled out for 115. Delhi Capitals chased it down in 10.3 overs to win by nine wickets at the Brabourne stadium, overcoming the Covid related crisis in the lead up to the match, including Tim Seifert testing positive on match day, the sixth within the team s bio bubble. Support staff of both teams remained masked up, watching from the dugout, while most of the public stands remained empty due to the last minute shift in venue from Pune. Back again and leading PBKS, Mayank Agarwal found some boundaries at the beginning but on 24 15b he chopped a good length delivery from Mustafizur Rahman on to the stumps.
That s after Shikhar Dhawan 9 was caught behind failing to pull Lalit Yadav s off spin. Sticking to their game plan, PBKS batters didn t bother switching tack and DC s crafty spinners proved too good for them. Liam Livingstone, who has been the most destructive batter for PBKS, was out stumped, trying to hit Axar Patel out of the ground off the third ball he faced. Jonny Bairstow 9 , who came in to replace the inform Bhanuka Rajapaksa, followed as he pulled left arm Khaleel Ahmed to the fine leg fielder. In the seventh over, PBKS were reduced to 54 4 and they could never recover. Jitesh Sharma got some boundaries away before getting out on 32, but his fellow domestic strike force Shahrukh Khan could do little damage. There was no Odean Smith for Punjab to potentially swing his big bat late in the innings, and his replacement Nathan Ellis and Kagiso Rabada were foxed by Kuldeep Yadav. The India left arm wrist spinner s improved showing using greater control at faster speeds continues to trouble batters in the league.
Yadav took 2 24 while Patel ended with dream figures of 4 0 10 2. I am Gujarati, no That s why I didn t give away runs, Patel told mid match. When we got to the ground, Ricky Ponting, chief coach just said let s focus on what s happening on the ground .
