Introduction:

Last night Kolkata Knight Riders and Punjab Kings were scheduled to play in the Eden Gardens which is the home ground of KKR as well. Eden Gardens is known as batting heaven and KKR has a record of making good scores on this pitch. They did the same in the last night as well. KKR went to bat first and posted a target of 261 runs, which is pretty good and a tough one to chase. However, things didn’t end well for KKR at all. Let’s focus on the match highlights so that we can get a closer look at the win. Read the blog & stay tuned with Cricfeverr.com to get more IPL News and IPL match highlights like this one.

What is the match overview?

Yesterday Kolkata Knight Riders & Punjab Kings were scheduled to play the 42nd match of the IPL 2024. The venue of the match was Eden Gardens and the match started at 7:30 PM.

Who won the toss and did what?

The PBKS stand-in captain Sam Curran won the toss and opted to field against KKR.

What happened on the pitch?

Punjab won the toss and decided to bowl first. It was expected that KKR would post a high target because they have a pretty good scoring record at their home ground. They did exactly that. KKR posted a target of 261/6 in 20 overs. However, the batting storm of Punjab didn’t let KKR win the match.

For the opening, KKR kept their trust in their trusted openers Sunil Narine and Phil Salt. This duo showcased an impressive opening partnership which set the tone as the team posted an imposing 261 for six. Narine hit nine fours and four sixes in his 32-ball innings of 71. This was Narine’s third fifty-plus score of the season, having previously scored 85 against Delhi Capitals and 109 against Rajasthan Royals. With his performance in yesterday’s match, Narine now occupies the second spot in the race for the ‘Orange Cap’ for leading run-scorers. He has accumulated a total of 357 runs from eight matches, trailing Virat Kohli by just 73 runs (Kohli has scored 430 runs).

Salt on the other hand was at his explosive best and scored his third fifty of the season in his 37-ball 75. He scored six fours and half a dozen sixes. Apart from them, other players including Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Shreyas Iyer, Rinku Singh, and Ramandeep Singh scored 39, 24, 28, 5, and 6 respectively.

Till this time, we thought that KKR would bag the match. However, Punjab’s show was just out of our imagination. Jonny Bairstow scored 108* runs in just 48 balls. In the 45th ball, he made his century. Well, not only Jonny, Shashank Singh also played extraordinary. Prabhsimran Singh scored a blistering fifty within the first six overs.

Punjab King’s batters rained sixes, and 24 of the sixes were overhauled in 18.4 overs. Shashank Singh blasted eight sixes, only one less than Bairstow’s nine. Bairstow scored an unbeaten 108 off 48 balls which was well supported by Shashank Singh’s 68 not out off 28 balls and pint-sized Prabhsimran Singh’s punchy 54 off just 20 balls.

We must mention that Punjab Kings did a job that gets done once in a blue moon. They chased down a target of 261 runs.

Who won the Player of the Match?

Punjab’s Jonny bagged the Player of the Match title for his terrific 108* in 48 balls.

Post-match reaction: who said what?

As we have already mentioned, PBKS has something great and their captain is in seventh heaven right now. It was reflected in the post-match conversation.

During the post-match presentation, Curran hailed the team’s exceptional performance. “Very pleasing. Most importantly the win, cricket has turned to baseball, isn’t it? We’re delighted with the two points, he said. “We had a tough few weeks as a team. Forget about the scores, we deserved this victory.”

When asked about the massive scores being put up by teams, Curran said, “Loads of different things, guys can hit balls for long periods of time, the coaches, training, the dew, dot balls become wide after reviews and you get the extra ball. Stats are going out of the window. For us, it’s all about the small moments. With the ball also we hung in there.”

Jonny’s performance is all praiseworthy. The English international shared, “We got off to a good start and that was key. They got a flier themselves thanks to Sunil so we knew we had to go ballistic in the powerplay. (Does change in format matter?) Not really, you’ve got to take risks to go on. When you’ve to chase 200-plus you’ve to take risks in the powerplay.”

Final words: 

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