Punjab Kings suffered their fifth consecutive loss, severely harming their chances of making the playoffs as Mumbai Indians won by six wickets thanks to four wickets from Shardul Thakur and a brilliant 75 from Tilak Varma in a pivotal IPL match in Dharamsala on Thursday.
MI chased down the target of 201 with one ball to spare as Tilak Varma stayed unbeaten at 75 from 33 balls. As MI reached 205/4 in 19.5 overs, Will Jacks provided Varma with company with 25 not out off 10 balls.
With stats of 2/36, Azmatullah Omarzai was Punjab’s most successful bowler.
Earlier, Punjab Kings posted 200/8 thanks to a powerful late push after Prabhsimran Singh who hammered a fluid half-century before Shardul Thakur’s four-wicket burst caused a spectacular collapse.
After losing four straight games, PBKS was asked to bat first. Priyansh Arya (27) and Prabhsimran (57) had an exciting 33-ball 50-run opening partnership.
Mumbai Indians paid a heavy price for dropping him early as Prabhsimran led Punjab to 55/1 in the powerplay and then added 57 runs with Cooper Connolly to push the team above the 100-run mark in the 12th over.
In the fifth over, Deepak Chahar struck first for MI, dismissing Arya with a ball that rocked the top of off stump.
Stand-in MI captain Jasprit Bumrah was unfortunate not to dismiss Prabhsimran earlier after Naman Dhir missed a simple catch off a thick edge in the second over. The PBKS batter took advantage of this by hitting Bumrah for two boundaries.
After hitting the first six of the innings against spinner Raghu Sharma in the eighth over, Connolly (21) went on to hit two more boundaries off Will Jacks. After that, Prabhsimran took over, hitting Corbin Bosch for another maximum and slog-sweeping Raghu for two sixes in the tenth over. After hitting a single to reach fifty, he hit another six off Shardul over backward square leg.
But after Shardul, who had given up 15 runs in his first over, hit twice in three balls, the momentum drastically changed. As PBKS faltered, the pacer dismissed captain Shreyas Iyer (4) after removing the well-set Prabhsimran.
Raj Bawa then entered the fray, dismissing Suryansh Shedge off Shardul with a deft catch at short midwicket after dismissing Connolly with a cross-seam delivery. Bosch trapped Shashank Singh leg before wicket, and Shardul struck again in the 17th over to put Punjab in serious difficulty. Marco Jansen also fell cheaply.
However, MI bowlers made mistakes with their variations in the final three overs, and PBKS finished strongly by stealing 53 runs. With a 17-ball 38 that included two sixes and a four, Azmatullah Omarzai spearheaded the comeback. Vishnu Vinod and Xavier Bartlett contributed crucial late runs.
With the help of careless fielding and two missed catches close to the boundary, Vinod and Bartlett amassed 22 runs off Bosch’s last over, helping Punjab reach 200 runs for the eighth time this season.
