The Punjab juggernaut continues with back-to-back 200 chases as SRH slump to their third defeat in four games
Until the 14th over of their 220-run chase in Mullanpur, the Punjab Kings innings mirrored the Sunrisers’ effort from earlier in the evening. The openers had maximised the Powerplays before falling in succession, followed by a stark reflection on the scoring rates. The differences ended just about there, with skipper Shreyas Iyer (69 not out of 33 balls) ensuring that the dip was only momentary for his side.
In two overs where the short-ball was put to the test, Iyer flipped the probes from Harshal Patel and Eshan Malinga into a game-defining burst. He pummeled a typical Harshal slower-ball over deep square leg for six, setting off on a hot streak of 28 runs in seven balls that sealed the chase. Smiting the slingy Malinga off a similar length, 91 metres back over the deep mid-wicket stands, effectively stubbed the chase. Punjab would stroll home with seven balls to spare on a second 200-plus chase in succession. Loaded in the same code as their counterparts, Punjab openers Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya’s fifties had erased a hefty chunk of the chase, recording 93 in the first six overs. They peppered 18 boundaries between them, offering a smooth handover for Iyer to extend Punjab’s unbeaten run.
Powerplay scorcher
The raging theme of the evening was the brutal Powerplay storm, which yielded nearly 45 per cent of the entire runs scored in the game.
The quality to dominate the phase continues to help Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma return to beat ignominies as a pair.
Iyer’s men had cues to pick up from SRH’s previous home game when a crafty Mohammad Shami’s slower-ball ploys plugged Head and Abhishek in 10 deliveries between them. When Abhishek followed a slash to the cover fence off a loose first delivery from Arshdeep Singh with a watchful push to the off-side, the signs of willingness to temper choices were glimpsed.
‘Circuit-breaker’
PBKS assistant coach James Hopes calls Shashank Singh the “circuit breaker”, a crisis man gifted with magical wrists. He had sent down only three overs in 33 games before for Punjab, but in the here and now, Shashank seemed like the apt fit to cut pace on the ball. He bowled after the Powerplay. Head went first, deceived by the slower one that consigned his catch to long on. Shashank then produced that valuable recall. Wafting an angled delivery across the turf, Shashank nipped Abhishek (74) out at deep cover, as it did against the same bowler back in 2024, his only wicket until this evening.