RCB vs PBKS Highlights, IPL 2025: Virat Kohli and co. flop at Chinnaswamy, Nehal Wadhera guides Punjab over the line

RCB vs PBKS Highlights, IPL 2025: Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) registered their third defeat at home in this Indian Premier League (IPL) season when they crashed to a five-wicket loss against Punjab Kings (PBKS) at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday.

PBKS chased down a 96-run target in a match that was reduced to 14 overs per side due to rain, to jump to the second spot in the points table, as RCB fell to the fourth spot.

Here are the five points that made the difference between victory and defeat:

Arshdeep Singh’s early double strike:

Arshdeep Singh gave PBKS a fantastic start by taking two wickets in his first two overs. The left-arm seamer first dismissed Phil Salt (4) on the fourth ball of the match.

And his next over, Arshdeep took the prized wicket of Virat Kohli to reduce RCB to 21/2. This was the second time that Arshdeep had dismissed the former India and RCB captain in the IPL.

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RCB’s middle order collapse:

After the double breakthrough by Arshdeep early in the innings, Yuzvendra Chahal and Marco Jansen bowled brilliant spells in the middle overs taking two wickets each while being quite economical.

Chahal and Jansen finished their three-overs spells with 2/10 and 2/11 respectively to reduce RCB to 42/7. Harpreet Brar then also took 2 wickets to make it 63/9 before he ran into Tim David.

RCB vs PBKS

The Tim David onslaught:

RCB were 33/5 (the lowest score at the fall of fifth wicket in IPL 2025) in 6.1 overs when Tim David walked to the crease. With wickets tumbling at the other end, David not only held one end up, but attacked from the word go by smashing the first delivery from Marco Jansen for a four.

David opened his shoulders in the last over of the RCB innings, smashing Brar for 3 consecutive sixes – the last one coming off a no ball. David took 2 runs off the last delivery to complete his maiden fifty in the IPL off 26 balls – a knock that was studded with 3 sixes and 5 fours in all to take RCB to 95/9 in their 14 overs.

RCB vs PBKS

Josh Hazlewood’s double-wicket over:

Josh Hazlewood used his height exceptionally well to extract bounce from the Chinnaswamy pitch. The Aussie first had Priyansh Arya caught by Tim David who took a skier to strike in his first over.

In his next over, Hazlewood bowled a rising delivery to Shreyas Iyer which the PBKS captain edged behind the wicket for keeper Jitesh Sharma to take the catch. Two balls later, Hazlewood bowled another rising delivery to Josh Inglis who slashed it to third man for Suyash Sharma to take the catch. This double-wicket burst opened the game for RCB as Hazlewood finished his spell at 3-0-14-3.

PBKS vs RCB

Nehal Wadhera takes PBKS over the line:

As PBKS were reduced to 53/4 giving RCB a faint ray of hope, Nehal Wadhera played an unbeaten match-winning knock to take his team over the line.

Wadhera smashed 3 sixes and 3 fours in his 19-ball 33 as Punjab won with 11 balls to spare. Wadhera's brilliant middle-order knock helped Punjab calm down the nerves that had been jangled by Hazlewood's excellent bowling.