In the 48th match of VIVO IPL 2021, Royal Challengers Bangalore has finally beaten Punjab Kings for the first time since 2019. RCB fans can rejoice as with this win, they have also qualified for the playoffs in IPL 2021, and PBKS is on the brink.

Although two games are still left for the Royal Challengers, and we are yet to see how the men in red use their winning momentum for the further games.

It looked like Punjab Kings were taking it smooth, and things were going well for them before it all came crashing down. While chasing a score of 165 runs, KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal put up a score of 91-run in 65 balls, but everything went downhill after that.

Rahul fell, followed by Pooran and Mayank, and soon, the game spiraled out of control.

RCB got its first breakthrough with Shahbaz Ahmed getting KL Rahul out for 39 in the 11th over. While Mayank brought up a fine half-century in the 13th over and took PBKS over 110 after 15 overs with Aiden Markram, he was dismissed by Chahal in his double-wicket 16th over that pushed PBKS to the backfoot.

Chahal dismissed Nicholas Pooran, and George Garton had the better of Markram in the 17th over.

Despite the changes in the team where PBKS brought in Harpreet Brar, Sarfaraz Khan, and Moises Henriques, they were not able to hold the fort and ended up with a total score of 158/6.

RCB won the toss and elected to bat against PBKS.

Kohli led the team towards a solid start with Devdutt Padikkal by adding 68 with a six and a four in the third over. The powerplay ended at 55/0, but PBKS ran their tides through Henriques, who snapped two wickets in the 10th over, dismissing Kholi and Padikkal in the 12th.

Glenn Maxwell joined the show and tonked off a half-century in 29 balls to take RCB towards the win. Maxwell counterattacked and shot incredible sixes in the 13th over and smashing two maximums as RCB moved past 100.

With the help of AB de Villiers, they scored another 17 runs in the 17th over by knocking off two fours and a six. Their partnership brought up a fifty-run stand before a direct hit from Sarfaraz ran out ABD.

The match ended with Shami delivering a three-wicket over before RCB chased down the score and ended up with 164/7 for the win.

After this defeat, Punjab Kings are in a sticky situation where they will require a victory and a series of other results to go their way.

Glenn Maxwell was the player of the match. On winning the match he says “I was lucky to hit the first couple out of the middle. I feel like the last two years I have batted nicely. To have it set up by the openers today gave us some time to get an idea of the wicket. The Sharjah wicket is probably the most difficult to adjust to. The spinners get it to skid on, meaning you have to be sharper at the start of your innings.”

The key players from the Royal Challengers Bangalore were Glenn Maxwell, Devdutt Padikkal, and Viral Kohli scoring 57 (33), 40 (38) and 25 (24) respectively.

The key players from Punjab Kings were Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul, and Aiden Markram scoring 57 (42), 39 (35) and 20 (14) respectively.

Players Talk

Virat Kohli

“It feels amazing. After 2011, we haven’t done it with games to spare. Eight wins out of 12 games is a great campaign. We have two more opportunities to finish in the top two. That’ll give us motivation to play even more fearlessly. 15-20 runs on this ground can be crucial. We have to plug those areas. As a side, we have had an endeavour to improve. We knew the wicket would get slower and slower. KL and Mayank batted really well, but we knew we were just two wickets away from coming back into the game.”

KL Rahul

“Would swap the orange cap for a victory any day. It is not something that I haven’t enjoyed wearing but would have been more happy had we won and qualified. I can’t put my finger on where things went wrong. The score they got was par, perhaps 10-15 runs extra that’s all. When someone like Maxwell bats like that, you have to give it to him. I think with the bat, the last couple of years have been disappointing for us. If I really have to be honest, our batting has let us down. I tried to adapt to the team’s needs and it is not something I enjoy. I have tried to do the best I can to play that role. Batting in the lower order, you are not going to get players scoring 500-600 runs but we have lacked someone who plays those crucial 25-30 run knocks. Shahrukh has done well. The likes of Arshdeep, Bishnoi, Harpreet have also done well. We need to find a way to score more runs.”

Stick with us as we bring you another match report of the clash of the two qualifiers – Delhi Capitals and Chennai Super Kings on 4^th October at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

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