Punjab Kings registered a convincing win by 5 wickets over Rajasthan Royals at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium in Guwahati in the 65th match of the ongoing IPL 2024 on Wednesday, May 15. Sam Curran smashed a quick fifty and the bowlers helped the team win.

RR players failed to do well with the bat

Rajasthan Royals won the toss and opted to bat first. RR had a poor start as their opener Yashasvi Jaiswal got out for a mere 4. However, Kohler-Cadmore and Sanju Samson tried to steady the ship but they couldn’t do much. Riyan Parag played yet another good knock of 48 off 34. On the other hand, R Ashwin also scored 28 off 19 with 3 fours and 1 six.

Their efforts helped them post a decent total of 144 for 9 in their allotted 20 overs. Sam Curran, Harshal Patel and Rahul Chahar claimed 2 wickets each.

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Sam Curran scored a quick fifty

While chasing, PBKS lost their in-form opener Prabhsimran Singh for a mere 4. However, Jonny Bairstow and Rilee Rossouw tried to steady the ship and added 30 runs within 5.3 overs before the latter got out. Soon Shashank Singh also got out for a duck.

However, after their dismissals, middle-order batters Sam Curran and Jitesh Sharma stepped up. While Sam scored a quickfire 63 off 41 with 5 fours and 3 sixes, Jitesh Sharma scored 22 and Ashutosh Sharma’s quick 17 helped them to win the match by 5 wickets and 18.5 overs in hand.

Sanju Samson said after the match: “We needed a few more runs. I think we were 10-15 runs short. It was a 160 kind of a wicket. We would have easily got more than 160 (had we played better), that’s where we lost the game. Would have been nice to have one more bowling option. I am getting used to five quality bowlers. We have to sit back and accept that we are going through failures, have lost four games on the trot. Got to find out what’s not working out for us as a team.

Somebody needs to step up, we have so many match-winners in the team. This is the time we need to show character. We need to score more runs. We thought 160-170 would have been a good score. We are not used to playing on such wickets this season where 200-plus totals are getting scored easily. We had to play smart cricket and build those partnerships today. Hopefully the result goes in our way (in the upcoming games.)”