Punjab Kings beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by 54 runs in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match on Friday. Explosive half-centuries from Jonny Bairstow (66) and Liam Livgstein (70) were followed by brilliant performances by the bowlers as Punjab Kings kept their hopes of reaching the playoffs alive by defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Punjab made a strong score of 209 for nine in 20 overs and then restricted Bangalore to 155 for nine in 20 overs. This is Punjab’s sixth win in 12 matches and has moved up to the sixth position in the points table. Bengaluru suffered a sixth loss in 13 matches but remained in fourth place. Bengaluru will have to win their last match at any cost for their playoff hopes.
After losing the toss, coming to bat first, Punjab made a stormy start and put out the smoke of the Bangalore bowlers in the powerplay. When Shikhar Dhawan was dismissed as the first batsman on the last ball of the fifth over, Punjab’s score had reached 60 runs at that time. Bairstow, batting in a killer style, scored 66 runs in just 29 balls with the help of four fours and seven sixes. Shikhar got out after scoring 21 runs in 15 balls.
Livingston hit five fours and four sixes in his 70 off 42 balls. Harpreet Brar and Rishi Dhawan also hit a six each in their seven-run innings. Captain Mayank Agarwal scored 19 runs in 16 balls with the help of three fours.
Bangalore bowlers proved to be very expensive in this match. Mohammad Siraj and Josh Hazlewood together conceded hundred runs in six overs, where Hazlewood gave 64 runs in four overs, while Siraj spent 36 runs in two overs. However, Hasranga conceded only fifteen runs in his quota of overs and also took two wickets. Harshal Patel took four wickets for 34 runs in four overs.
Punjab Kings beat Bangalore by 54 runs. With this win, he has moved up to the sixth position in the points table with 12 points. Although RCB are presently on the fourth position with 14 points, but they now have two difficulties ahead of them. Firstly, their next match is against Gujarat Titans, which has played the best this season as compared to all other teams. The second biggest concern is RCB’s net run rate, which has turned negative after this defeat. If the rest of the teams finish the points table with 16 points, then in such a situation, RCB will have to depend on the net run rate of the rest of the teams even after the win against Gujarat.