RR batters fire in unison in Dharamsala as PBKS fail to reach playoffs yet again

Days after suffering the ignominy of being shot out for the third-lowest total in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Rajasthan Royals (RR) bounced back in style to defeat Punjab Kings (PBKS) in Dharamsala.

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RR, who had lost six of their last eight outings heading into their final league match of the season, dished out a complete performance with the bat to chase down a stiff 188-run target set by PBKS after the ‘home’ team recovered from a slow start to post a challenging total on the board.

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In the process, Rajasthan kept their hopes of reaching the playoffs for a second season running hanging by a thread, while the defeat ensured Punjab became the third team after Delhi Capitals (DC) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to bow out of the playoffs race.

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PBKS have now gone nine seasons in a row without making the playoffs, having last achieved the feat in their runner-up finish in 2014.

RR, meanwhile, are mathematically alive in the contest, going level with Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Mumbai Indians (MI) on 14 points and dislodging the latter from the fifth spot on the basis of their superior Net Run Rate (NRR), and will depend on a host of other results going their way over the final double-header weekend of the season for them to go through.

Padikkal, Jaiswal and Hetmyer power the RR through

Rajasthan were guilty of letting Punjab off the hook after having them on the mat by reducing them to 50/4 in the seventh over, with Liam Livingstone departing for 9 just a couple of days after smashing a scintillating 94 off just 48 balls at the same venue. The Punjab middle-order trio of Sam Curran (49 not out), Jitesh Sharma (44) and Shahrukh Khan (41 not out) took full toll of some wayward bowling and sloppy fielding in the second half to post a competitive 187/5 on the board.

Watch: Boult pulls off a stunning catch off his own bowling to remove Prabhsimran

And with Jos Buttler back in the hut after registering his fifth duck of the season, the game appeared well and truly in Punjab’s favour.

Devdutt Padikkal, however, got into his groove and decided to play the aggressor in a match-defining second-wicket partnership with Yashasvi Jaiswal worth 73 that brought the Royals back on their feet. Padikkal, who had been having a stop-start run in recent games, took the attack to Punjab’s star bowlers Kagiso Rabada and Arshdeep Singh, bringing up his second half-century of the season along the way before getting dismissed by the latter.

Jaiswal, who had got off the mark with a hat-trick of boundaries off Sam Curran’s bowling at the start of the chase, carried on from where Padikkal left off, and in a similar fashion, departed right after bringing up his fifty.

The two had laid the groundwork for a successful chase, and Rajasthan had the firepower in the middle order to see them through from the position that Jaiswal left them in by the time he departed. Shimron Hetmyer lived up to his billing yet again with a 28-ball 46 that contained four fours and three sixes, and was ably supported by Riyan Parag’s 12-ball 20.

And though Hetmyer couldn’t see the team through till the very end, Dhruv Jurel — one of the most exciting young prospects in the IPL this year, sealed the deal with a straight six off Rahul Chahar to ensure his team remained afloat, at least till the weekend fixtures were done and dusted.

PBKS left to rue yet another underwhelming season

Punjab, meanwhile, had only themselves to blame to ending their IPL 2023 campaign with an eighth defeat in 14 games, failing to reach the playoffs for a ninth season running. The Kings, who had reached the semi-finals in the inaugural edition in 2008 and finished runners-up in 2014, would have had immense hope of getting out of the rut that they found themselves in, particularly with the addition of international stars such as all-rounder Curran who not only formed a vital cog in the middle order but also bolstered a bowling unit comprising match-winners such as Rabada and Arshdeep.

As for their batting front, skipper Shikhar Dhawan himself had been in roaring form with the bat in the first half of the season before losing some of that form after a shoulder injury. The emergence of young batting stars in opener Prabhsimran Singh and wicketkeeper-batter Jitesh Sharma too has been among the major positives for the Trevor Bayliss-coached franchise this season.

All the talent in the world will do a team no good if there is no proper planning in place throughout the season, or the team isn’t able to execute those plans on the given day. That, along with the fact that Punjab once again were guilty of not firing as a unit with bat or ball for the better part of the season, something that the leader acknowledge after the game.

“We could have done better in all the areas I think. Sometimes the batting was clicking, and sometimes the bowling was clicking, we couldn’t put those performances together. But it’s a young group, so we have learnt a lot of things this season,” Dhawan said after the match.

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