The Rajasthan Royals defeated Punjab Kings by six wickets thanks to Donovan Ferreira’s daring strokeplay in a thrilling chase at Mullanpur on Tuesday. This was the first time in this IPL season that Punjab Kings had to swallow the bitter pill of defeat.
With four balls remaining, the Rajasthan Royals, chasing a target of 223, required 71 off the final six overs. Ferreira, accompanied by an unheralded Shubham Dubey (31 not out off 12 balls), smashed his way to an unbeaten 52 off 26 balls.
As PBKS troika of Arshdeep Singh (1/68 in 4 overs), Lockie Ferguson (0/57 in 4 overs), and Marco Jansen (0/41 in 3.2 overs) would wish to quickly forget this day, Ferreira was outstanding in his area selection.
Ferreira and Dubey combined for nine fours and five sixes to undo Yuzvendra Chahal’s excellent performance (3/36 in 4 overs).
Royals openers Yashasvi Jaiswal (51) and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (43) gave a flying start with a quickfire 51-run stand to set the stage for the run chase.
Earlier, Punjab Kings scored a challenging 222/4 as Marcus Stoinis muscled his way to a 20-ball half-century, totally negating a heroic performance by youthful leg-spinner Yash Raj Punja.
Despite appearing dangerous, none of Punjab’s top three players—Prabhsimran Singh (59 off 44 balls), Priyansh Arya (29 off 11 balls), and Cooper Connolly (30 off 14 balls)—were able to play a significant knock on a hard track with noticeable bounce.
As the Royals conceded up to 55 runs in the final three overs, Stoinis hammered his way to an undefeated 22-ball 62 with six sixes and four boundaries. With 24 coming off the last over of the innings, inexperienced Brijesh Sharma’s pace-off strategy (0/42 in 4 overs) backfired.
The Royals bowlers, notably the reliable Jofra Archer (1/40), were guilty of pitching length balls inside Stoinis’ hitting arc. Stoinis, who hasn’t really been called up this season, was all about raw force.
But the unheralded Yash Raj (2 for 41 in 4 overs), a 6-foot-4-inch-tall leg-spinner, deserves praise for keeping things close until the 16th over, changing his tempo, and not being scared to bowl a flighted delivery and change the length as needed.
Yash Raj dismissed the Australian against the run of play when he flew one beyond the off-stump and asked the batter to fetch it, just as Connolly was unleashing some wonderful strokeplay. Donovan Ferreira made a simple long-off catch as a consequence.
Despite hitting six boundaries, a six, and a half-century, Prabhsimran’s timing wasn’t very fluid.
Without being near the delivery pitch, Yash Raj, whose average speed was in the early 90s (kmph), slowed it down and encouraged Prabhsimran to throw the kitchen sink, but Riyan Parag collected the catch neatly.
