The beauty of the Indian Premier League is that it is unpredictable and you can never write off a team no matter how bad a situation they are in. Anything can happen anytime and the tables can turn at times when it is least expected. And boy has the notion been proved again in tonight’s match or precisely the third match of phase 2 of the Indian Premier League between Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings.
KL Rahul led Punjab Kings have pretty much made up an image of themselves as the Chokers or the so called bottlers of IPL due to the fact that they have lost many a matches now from winning positions and tonight they suffered probably their worst loss in recent history.
Punjab Kings did extremely well from the very beginning. Despite the target being a lot, they never seemed to be in a problem or concern as their opening partnership of KL Rahul and Mayank Aggarwal did wonders, Their 100+ partnership broke many records and gave Punjabjust the start they required. After the fall of these two important wickets, it was South African batsman Aiden Markram and West Indies big hitter Nicholas Pooran (who had been in a terrible form in the first phase of IPL 2021) who took charge of the innings and they both did awesomely well too. So much so that despite the huge target, at one point the required run rate had been reduced to a mere 7 rpo.
However, things changed in the last two overs. From 10 runs required in 15 overs, Punjab Kings went to an unfortunate requirement of 3 runs in 2 balls thanks to the brilliance of Kartik Tyagi. The Rajasthan Royals bowler did wonders in the final over. Punjab Kings needed just 4 runs in the final over but Tyagi gave away just 1. He took two wickets of Nicholas Pooran and Deepak Hooda at a gap of a bowl and when Fabian Allen came in to face the last ball (PK need 3 runs), he bowled a dot ball. A fabulous comeback by Rajasthan Royals and thus they win the match against Punjab Kings courtesy of a magical last over by Kartik Tyagi.
Karthik Tyagi in Final over: 0 1 W 0 W 0