IPL 2024 | Twitter reacts to Curran’s all-round brilliance leaving Royals with four back-to-back loses

SportsCafe Desk

BySportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor

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Punjab Kings beat Rajasthan Royals by five wickets in Guwahati, leaving the latter with a four-match losing streak. Sam Curran’s all-round excellence with bowling brilliance and Jitesh’s support eclipsed Riyan Parag’s 48 at their home ground to keep the Royals hungry for a top-two finish.

Brief Scores: RR: 144/9; [Parag: 48, Samson: 18; 4-0-26-2] lost to PBKS: 145/5 [Curran: 63*, Rossouw: 22; Avesh Khan: 3.5-0-28-2] by five wickets.

With the absence of Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson won the toss and elected to bat first in their second home but suffered an early jolt in the form of Yashasvi Jaiswal departing in the first over. While Sanju Samson and debutant Tom Kohler-Cadmore tried to stabilize the ship, they were troubled by the change of pace from the Kings’ bowlers. Following a 38-run powerplay, both batters departed off Nathan Ellis and Rahul Chahar with the score 43/3 in eight overs. Ravichandran Ashwin and Riyan Parag added 42 runs in the next four overs with two fours and a six coming off the last three balls of the 12th over. However, Arshdeep Singh, Curran, and Rahul Chahar broke the shackles by extracting three wickets to reduce the Royals to 113/6 in 16 overs. While local boy Parag tried to drag the game deep, he seemed more like a lone warrior, eventually succumbing to Kings’ brilliant bowling as RR ended up with 144/9.

In reply, Trent Boult got the better of Prabhsimran Singh in the first over itself followed by Avesh Khan removing Rilee Rossouw and Shashank Singh in his first over to sum up a 39-run powerplay. The introduction of spin led to the fall of Jonny Bairstow off Yuvzendra Chahal with the score reading 48/4 in eight overs. Subsequently, Jitesh Sharma and Sam Curran soaked up the pressure by ticking the scoreboard amidst periodic boundaries before Chahal outsmarted the wicketkeeper-batter in the 16th over to fragment the 63-run stand. With the score reading 116/4, impact sub Ashutosh Sharma assisted Curran who switched gears after scoring a fifty. With 25 runs required off the last three overs, the pair assaulted Sandeep and Avesh to ease the chase with seven balls to go.

Hard luck

Way clear

Error and skill

See you

After the squad selection

Serious liosing streak

To watch out

Cinservative

First uncapped

Batting first

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