The Shikhar Dhawan-led Punjab Kings (PBKS) lost by 4 wickets against the Faf du Plessis-led Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the 6th match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) on March 25 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru.
RCB won the toss and opted to bowl first in the match. The bowlers did a good job initially but leaked a lot of runs in the back end of the innings. At the start of the innings, PBKS batters couldn’t get going and they were not able to play an attacking brand of cricket.
Shikhar Dhawan scored 45 runs off 37 balls and his innings consisted of 5 fours and 1 six while Prabhsimran Singh (25), Liam Livingstone (17), Sam Curran (23), and Jitesh Sharma (27) made significant contributions.
However, in the end, Shashank Singh launched an attack on Royal Challengers Bengaluru bowlers and smashed 21 runs off 8 balls to help PBKS post 176/6 on the board.
Chasing the target, Virat Kohli showed his true class and single-handedly took his team closer to the win and smashed 77 runs off 49 balls.
In the end, Dinesh Karthik played an exceptional cameo of 28 runs and he was well supported by Mahipal Lomror (17) as the Royal Challengers Bengaluru won the match by 4 wickets.
Speaking during the post-match presentation ceremony, Shikhar Dhawan said that he wasn’t able to utilize the powerplay which resulted in Punjab Kings posting 10-15 runs less on the board as a target for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru. He said:
“It was a good game, we brought the game back and again we lost it. We scored 10-15 runs less, in the first six overs I played a bit slow. Those 10-15 runs cost us and the dropped catch as well.”
While talking about the turning point of the match, Shikhar decided to put the entire blame on the English player Jonny Bairstow, who dropped the catch of Virat Kohli in the first over of the second innings off Sam Curran’s delivery. He said:
“(Turning point) Virat scored 70-odd runs and we dropped a catch of the class player, we paid the price. If we had taken that catch, the momentum would have come from the second ball. But we lost the momentum over there and then we paid the price for that.”
The match went till the last over, at the end also we could have bowled a bit better – Shikhar Dhawan
Shikhar Dhawan further said that a two-paced wicket was on offer in the match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. The Punjab Kings skipper expressed disappointment over the performance of his bowlers but was more or less satisfied with the way he batted in the match. He said:
“It looked good but it wasn’t a very true wicket, it was stopping, bit of double bounce and turned as well. 70% coming good, 30% it was doing a bit. I am happy with my runs but I thought I could have played a bit more fast in the first six overs, that’s the only thing I felt. We lost wickets as well, we lost two wickets continuously and that put pressure on us. At the end, that’s the total we thought on this wicket. The match went till the last over, at the end also we could have bowled a bit better.”
Shikhar Dhawan concluded his post-match presentation ceremony by talking about spinner Harpreet Brar, who bowled exceptionally well and bagged two wickets for 13 runs in his 4-over quota. He stated:
“(On Harpreet Brar) He’s bowling really well, especially bowling against left-handers, tremendous the way he soaked in the pressure and got us the breakthroughs. It’s a very big thing in Punjab, the Kabaddi thing, the people really connect with that thigh-five, happy to see him do it.”
