Our Bureau
Ahmedabad
Punjab Kings have qualified for the finals of the Indian Premier League after beating Mumbai Indians last night in Qualifier 2 in what turned out to be a chase for the ages. The Kings have reached the finals of the IPL after 11 years and will be battling it out with the Royal Challengers Bengaluru as both teams will look to win their first championship ever.
Coming after a crushing defeat in the Qualifier 1 by the hands of RCB, Punjab bounced back with a statement as their captain Shreyas Iyer led from the front taking the franchise to their 2nd finals ever. With this victory, Iyer became the only captain in the history of IPL to take three different franchises to the finals. He was awarded the Man of the Match for his knock of 87 runs off 41 balls that won PBKS the game.
The match started off around 2 hours late from the designated time because of the rain but no overs were lost. Iyer won the toss and decided to bowl first. Although their ace pacer Arshdeep Singh did not have a great game, other bowlers stepped up to the occasion. Every bowler other than Arshdeep took a wicket with Azmatullah Omarzai leading the charge with 2 wickets to his name. MI managed to score 203 with key contributions from Surya Kumar Yadav, Tilak Verma, Jonny Baristow and Naman Dhir.
Chasing 200 plus against MI was going to require an epic effort as the records suggested, MI had never lost a match in the history of the tournament defending 200-plus runs. But PBKS came out all guns blazing as Josh Inglis smashed MI’s ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah for 20 runs in an over and took everyone by surprise. After that it was all the Shreyas Iyer and Nehal Wadhera show as the duo smashed MI bowlers all around the park, stitching up 84 run partnership.
The match went close when the Kings lost Wadhera and Shashank Singh in quick successions but their skipper kept his composure and led from the front showcasing his hefty range of shots. In the last two overs Punjab needed 23 runs to win but Iyer decided he was going to make a statement as he smashed four sixes in Ashwini Kumar’s last over and took Punjab to the finals.
Now RCB awaits PBKS in the finals as they will face each other once again after Qualifier 1. On 3rd June IPL will get a new champion and after 18 years one of the two teams is going to break the curse and bring their first championship home.
