Dubai: KL Rahul(67) played a captain’s knock as Punjab Kings revived the hopes for the play-off of the Indian Premier League(IPL) this season beating Kolkata Knight Riders by 5 wickets. Youngster Arshdeep Singh also shone bright for Punjab who restricted KKR to 165 before it was chased down in thrilling fashion in the last over.
Chasing 166, PBKS set the tone up through skipper Rahul and Mayank Agarwal for the chase hammering 70 runs for the opening stand before the later got dismissed by Varun Chakravarthy. KKR gave themselves a slight edge removing Nicolas Puran, Deepak Hooda and Aiden Makram cheaply which was lead by spinner Chakravarthy(2/24) bowling a superb spell while Sunil Narine(1/34) also gave him a good support.
However, it was Rahul who held the anchor while playing a captain’s knock until the penultimate over when he hot dismissed but it didn’t stop Punjab from claiming the win as Shahrukh Khan who smashed a 9 ball 22 sealed the deal in that over.
Earlier, dspite the loss of Subhman Gill in just the third over, KKR recovered well through Venkatesh Iyer(67) and Rahul Tripathi(34) with the duo stitching together a solid 72 run stand for the second wicket. Even after the later got dismissed in the 12th over, the scoring rate didn’t drop as Nitish Rana hammered a quick fire 18 ball 31.
KKR looked all set for a big total till Venkatesh was there at the crease with the southpaw smashing his second half-century this season and was taking the game away from the opposition.
Punjab though brought themselves back through Ravi Bishnoi(2/22) just at the right picking up both Tripathi and the well set Iyer while bowling a tight spell. The young spinner was well supported by Arshdeep Singh(3/32),the pick of the PBKS bowlers and Mohammed Shami helping their side to tighten things up denying Kolkata to score a mammoth total.
Brief Scores: Punjab Kings 168/5 in 19.3 overs(KL Rahul 67, Mayank Agarwal 40; Varun Chakravarthy 2/24) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 165/7 in 20 overs( Venkatesh Iyer 67, Nitish Rana 31; Arshdeep Singh 3/32) by 5 wickets
