Punjab Kings 223 for 4 (Iyer 69*, Arya 57, Prabhsimran 51, Shivang 3-33) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 219 for 6 (Abhishek 74, Klaasen 39, Head 38, Shashank 2-20, Arshdeep 2-50) by six wickets
Shashank took 2 for 20 in three overs, finishing with an economy rate of 6.66 in a game where 442 runs were scored.
This was the tenth time PBKS had chased down a 200-plus target, the most times by any team in the IPL.
The Travishek show returns
Abhishek pulled a short ball from Arshdeep Singh over midwicket and then slapped a slower ball down the ground for back-to-back boundaries. Arshdeep went on to bowl four wides in his next five attempts to keep the ball out of Abhishek’s arc. Under pressure, he ended up bowling closer to off and was thumped down the ground for the first six of the game. When Arshdeep went around the wicket and bowled short and across the left-hander, Abhishek went up and over short third for another six.
Head, on 3 off 5 at this point, joined the party by taking down Marco Jansen for two fours and a six in the fourth over.
When PBKS turned to Vijaykumar Vyshak, Abhishek welcomed him with a six over cover and then hit him for three more for the second 24-run over of the powerplay, in the process bringing up an 18-ball fifty.
Head followed up with a hat-trick of boundaries against compatriot Xavier Bartlett. One legal ball later, when Abhishek pulled a short ball in front of square for a six, SRH brought up their hundred in 35 balls, making it the fifth time a team had reached 100 inside the powerplay – three of them had come courtesy this opening pair. Their 105 for no loss at the end of the sixth over was the joint-third-highest powerplay score in the IPL.
Shashank gambit pays off
With PBKS’ frontline bowlers getting hit around the park, Iyer turned to Shashank’s medium-pace, and it turned out to be the turning point in the game.
He conceded just six runs off the first over after the powerplay, and off the first ball of his next over he foxed Head with a slower ball that was chipped tamely to long-off. A single and a wide later, he had Abhishek slicing to cover for 74 off 28. With that, Shashank had three IPL wickets, and they were of Abhishek, Head and Abhishek.
From there, the scoring rate dropped significantly. Ishan Kishan scored briskly, but Jansen took a screamer running from deep midwicket to end his cameo in the 14th over. Heinrich Klaasen, meanwhile, could never really get going, and fell as he tried to accelerate at the death, for 39 off 33. In the end, SRH finished on 219 for 6, the lowest first-innings total when an IPL team has scored 100 or more in the powerplay.
Prabharya say hello
Chasing 220 can be daunting. But perhaps less so if you know your opponents left some runs out there, especially in the impact player era.
SRH opted for Harsh Dubey’s left-arm spin first up and Arya welcomed him with a sweep for four, before launching the last two balls of the over down the ground – once over the rope and once along the carpet – to knock 18 runs off the target.
Then Prabhsimran took over the scoring. The next three overs went for 37, to which Arya contributed just the one run. Prabhsimran took a special liking to Jaydev Unadkat, whom he hit for three sixes.
The fifth over by Eshan Malinga went for 17, and PBKS saved the best of the powerplay for the last over, with Arya going 6, 6, 4, 4 to bring up a 16-ball fifty and welcome Harshal Patel into the attack with a 21-run over.
PBKS made 12 fewer runs than SRH in the powerplay, but with a target in front of them, they knew they were ahead in the chase.
Nitish Kumar Reddy went for just six runs in the tenth over, before Shivang prised out the in-form Cooper Connolly, another PBKS batter holing out in the deep. PBKS needed 92 from 58 with two new batters at the crease.
Shreyas finishes the job
PBKS had lost 3 for 29 in 25 balls, but captain Iyer kept his cool. He got to 8 off 8 before hammering Reddy for a six and four to get going in the 12th over.
Two overs later, it was Harshal who came under fire as Iyer pulled him for six before lofting him short of long-off for four, with Klaasen letting the ball go through him. Next ball, Iyer thumped a full toss over long-on.
He hit a four and two more sixes off Malinga in the 16th over to bring the equation down to less than run a ball. Dubey, in his final over, yorked Nehal Wadhera, but it was too little too late as Iyer and Shashank finished the game in the 19th over, ending SRH’s four-game winning streak against them.
Abhimanyu Bose is a sub-editor with ESPNcricinfo
