Rajasthan Royals (RR) pulled off a four-wicket win over Punjab Kings (PBKS) on Friday night to stay in the fray for a playoff place, at least on paper.
Batting first, PBKS set a competitive target of 188, which the Royals chased down in 19.4 overs. The RR chase was powered by Shimron Hetmyer’s 46 off 28, opener Yashasvi Jaiswal’s hitting 50 of 36 and Devdutt Padikkal’s hammering 51 off 31.
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Earlier, PBKS scored 187/5 with Sam Curran scoring an unbeaten 49 off 31, Jitesh Sharma’s 44 off 28 and M Shahrukh Khan’s 41 off 23.
Royals, with Friday’s win, now have 14 points after the conclusion of their league games, while PBKS finished their season with 12 points.
The Royals moved to fifth position and their fortunes in the tournament depend on the results of the remaining matches as both Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians, who have a game in hand each, have 14 points each as well.
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After another good outing for Yashasvi Jaiswal, former Indian batter Suresh Raina underlined the opener’s consistent form and confident body language on the field on JioCinema.
“There is a certain calmness in his batting. There is a different energy in his body language, scoring runs consistently for his team. For this, I’ll give a lot of credit to Kumar Sangakkara who is sitting in their dugout. He’s (Jaiswal) a different type of player. He looks to dominate. And any player who looks to dominate in this format reaches a different level. He has all those qualities,” he said.
Another JioCinema expert Pragyan Ojha commented on how Rajasthan saw them going from one of the top four teams coming into the tournament now depending on permutations and combinations to even go beyond the league stage.
“I think it’s too late now. For a team who you kept in your top four before the start of the tournament to now come and think that they can advance only if the other team that is in contention loses is a situation they brought upon themselves,” Ojha remarked.
“That is something they have to think about. As Raina (Suresh) pointed out Sanju Samson and Jos Buttler got out for ducks in five of the 14 games. Then they were left searching for bowlers, also the way they used their bowlers… The small things add up to something big and it is visible in the eventual result,” he added.
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