Punjab Kings pulled off a dominating seven-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings in the 49th match of the Indian Premier League 2024 on Wednesday. Spinners produced a brilliant performance to restrict Chennai to a 162 total and then an impressive innings from Jonny Bairstow and Rilee Rossouw led Punjab to an easy chase with 13 balls remaining at MA Chidambaram Stadium.
A win thrusted Punjab Kings to seventh position in the points table with four wins in ten games boosting their chances to secure a playoff qualification. Chennai Super Kings’ inconsistent form continued with their fifth defeat in ten games but the defending champions maintain their fourth place in the standings.
After winning the toss, the stand-in skipper Sam Curran elected to bowl first with the same playing eleven. Ruturaj Gaikwad’s CSK were forced to make two major changes with Richard Gleeson and Shadul Thakur coming in for unavailable Matheesha Pathirana and Tushar Deshpande.
Openers Ajinkya Rahane and Ruturaj Gaikwad gave Chennai a strong start by scorching 64 runs for the first wicket. But Punjab Kings made a stunning comeback in the middle overs with spinner Harpreet Brar and Rahul Chahar taking two wickets each.
Gaikwad continued his red-hot form by top-scoring with 62 runs off 48 balls and also went past Virat Kohli to claim the Orange Cap this season. Gaikwad didn’t get much support from the other end as Punjab bowlers restricted Chennai to a decent total of 162/7 in 20 overs.
Debutant veteran Richard Gleeson balanced the game with an early wicket of impact substitute Prabhsimran Singh. But Punjab avoided losing momentum with Jonny Bairstow and Rilee Rossouw producing a match-defining 64-run partnership for the second wicket.
On his only second delivery in the IPL 2024, Shivam Dube displayed his bowling skills to deny Bairstow his fifty in the tenth over and Shardul Thakur bowled out Rossouw in the 12th over to raise some hopes for Chennai to make a late comeback.
But the in-form duo of Sam Curran and Shashank Singh avoided further fall by adding unbeaten 50 runs for the fourth wicket to lead Punjab Kings to an easy seven-wicket win with 13 balls remaining. Harpreet Brar won the Player of the Match award for his two for 17 figures.
Chennai Super Kings Playing XI: Ajinkya Rahane (substituted by Sameer Rizvi, Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Daryl Mitchell, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (wk), Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Richard Gleeson, Mustafizur Rahman.
Punjab Kings Playing XI: Jonny Bairstow, Sam Curran (c), Rilee Rossouw, Shashank Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Ashutosh Sharma, Harpreet Brar, Harshal Patel, Kagiso Rabada, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh (substituted by Prabhsimran Singh).