The fate of the Punjab Kings-Rajasthan Royals Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 fixture on Saturday was pretty much sealed once pacer Jofra Archer hit the bull’s eye a couple of times in the first over of the second innings.
Chasing 206 is tough, and it is even tougher once you lose two wickets within six balls.
RR went on to win by 50 runs, thereby consigning PBKS to its fifth straight loss at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Stadium.
The home fans went silent as PBKS lost opener Priyansh Arya and Shreyas Iyer early. After this, Sandeep Sharma sent back Marcus Stoinis, and Impact Player Kumar Kartikeya removed Prabhsimran Singh.
Nehal Wadhera (62, 41b, 4×4, 3×6) and Glenn Maxwell’s 88-run stand did pump up the crowd, but the high was short-lived as the Australian and the local boy perished trying to clear the boundary off consecutive balls.
The rest of the proceedings proved a mere formality, even though there was confusion regarding whether RR had more deep fielders than what is allowed off the final ball of the match.
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Earlier, Royals amassed 205 for four after being asked to bat first.
The 89-run opening stand between Yashasvi Jaiswal (67, 45b, 3×4, 5×6) and Sanju Samson (38, 26b, 6×4) gave the ideal platform for the rest of the batters — led by Riyan Parag (43 n.o., 25b, 3×4, 3×6) — to go big in the death overs.
The first time Samson mistimed a ball, he holed out straight to his opposite number Shreyas, off Lockie Ferguson. Jaiswal, unperturbed by what happened at the other end, latched onto anything loose and punished Yuzvendra Chahal and Stoinis.
Ferguson struck again as Jaiswal missed a slower ball. He could have added another wicket to his tally had Chahal not missed a regulation catch to dismiss Shimron Hetmyer.
Parag went berserk after a slow start and made full use of a reprieve given by Marco Jansen.
Arshdeep ensured Chahal’s miss was not costly as he sent back Hetmyer in the penultimate over. However, Parag and Dhruv Jurel scored 19 off Stoinis’ final over to propel the score above 200, which proved too hard for PBKS to hunt down.
