Unbeaten century by Jonny Bairstow and half century by Shashank Singh steered Punjab Kings to set record chase of 262 runs against the Kolkata Knight Riders and win the game by 8 wickets.
Prabhsimran Singh and Jonny Bairstow opened the innings for Punjab Kings and Singh took to KKR bowlers in the initial overs. Prabhsimran Singh brought up his 50 in 18 balls but got run out soon after at 54. Jonny Bairstow went on to bring up his 50 in 23 balls and then 100 in 45 balls. Shashank Singh played an absolutely wonderful innings with his all-round shot-making with Bairstow to steer Punjab Kings to a 8–wicket victory over KKR. Shashank scored 68* runs of 28 balls to support Bairstow and take his team home. Bairstow finished on 108*.
Bairstow steals the show with century
Jonny Bairstow opened the innings for Punjab Kings and after a slow start he took the lead and went on to make a century in 45 balls. Bairstow was struggling with his form and returned to the team after sitting out for two matches. Bairstow played shots all over the park and took to KKR bowlers to make this innings special. His century became even more special as the Punjab Kings successfully chased 262 against the KKR.
KKR in First Innings
Earlier, Kolkata Knight Riders scored 261/6 in their 20 overs with some excellent batting display from openers Sunil Narine, Phil Salt and later by Venkatesh and Shreyas Iyer. Punjab Kings bowlers were taken to task by the KKR batsmen, adding to the woes was sloppy fielding and dropped catches.
Punjab Kings won the toss and invited Kolkata Knight Riders to bat first. Sunil Narine and Philip Salt opened the innings in their style scoring 76 for no loss in the first six overs at the end of Powerplay. Punjab Kings dropped two catches, one each of Narine and Salt as they continued scoring for KKR. Narine brough up his 50 in 23 balls while Salt completed his half century in 25 balls. Sunil Narine got out on 71, Chahar got the breakthrough for Punjab Kings. Salt got out on 75 in 37 balls, Curran got the wicket. Venkatesh and Russell took charge and continued scoring runs for KKR. Russell got out on 24. Shreyas Iyer stepped into the field to join Venkatesh and showed some excellent display of shots towards the end of the innings and scored 28 runs before getting out to Arshdeep in 10 balls.
Punjab bowlers put to test against KKR
Punjab Bowlers, which had never allowed any team so far in IPL 2024 to score more than 200 runs, were put to real test by the KKR batsmen. Sunil Narine and Philip Salt almost thrashed the Punjab bowlers in their own way hitting boundaries and sixes all over the park. Their woes were added by some sloppy fielding and dropped catches by the Punjab players. There were 3 dropped catches within 8 overs of the innings and KKR crossed the score of 100 in the same period. KKR scored 203 runs in 15.3 overs. At the end of the innings, PBKS bowlers gave away 261 runs in 20 overs.
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