Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], April 23 : Punjab Kings bowler Arshdeep Singh clobbered the Mumbai Indian side with his outstanding bowling in the last over on Saturday. However, he does not believe that there was something special about it.
In the death overs, Jitesh Sharma with an explosive bat scored 25 runs off 7 balls during the batting innings and Arshdeep with a bowl by taking two wickets provided a victory to the team. Both the matchwinner interacted in a video posted by IPL's social media handle.
The pacer had a conversation with wicketkeeper-batter Jitesh Sharma.
"Someone must have hit these stumps earlier, but they broke when I bowled. It was nothing special. But I aimed to back my plans in the final over, to make the use of long boundary and to keep things simple. All credits go to Jitesh and our bowling coach," Arshdeep said in a posted video on IPL's Twitter handle.
Defending 16 runs in the final over, Arshdeep gave away only two runs. But he also took two wickets of Tilak Verma and impact player Nehal Wadhera in two successive balls of the over. His onslaught denied MI their fourth win of the tournament. Arshdeep's final over figures read 1,0,W,W,0,1.
But during the two wickets he got, Arshdeep's tight, pin-point yorkers broke the middle stump in two pieces not once, but twice. This is how this cheap, match-winning over somehow turned out to be perhaps the most expensive one, breaking a piece of cricketing equipment in half on two occasions.
Jitesh said that he has played many matches at Wankhede stadium and is habitual to the bounce on the pitch. He further added that he knew 190 was not enough therefore he scored those 15-20 runs.
"I just prepared well and watched the ball. I have played a lot of matches in Wankhede and I know the bounce on these wickets. I knew that 190 could be chased easily on this wicket. I had to go all-out since those extra 15-20 runs were important. These extra runs were the difference today," PBKS batter added
MI won the toss and opted to field first against PBKS. PBKS inning ended at 214/8 in their 20 overs. Sam Curran (55 in 29 balls with five fours and four sixes), Harpreet Singh (41 in 28 balls with four boundaries and two sixes) and Atharva Taide (29 off 17 balls with three fours and a six) were among the top batters for Punjab.
Piyush Chawla (2/15 in three overs) was the pick of the bowlers for MI. Cameron Green also took 2/41 in his four overs. Jofra Archer, Jason Behrendorff and Arjun Tendulkar got one scalp each.
Chasing 215, MI lost Ishan Kishan early, but a 76-run stand for the second wicket between skipper Rohit Sharma (44 off 27 balls with four boundaries and three sixes) and Green brought MI back into the game. Green, who scored 67 off 43 balls with six fours and three sixes also stitched a 75-run stand with Suryakumar Yadav (57 off 26 balls, seven fours and three sixes) for the third wicket.
But PBKS and Arshdeep (4/29) in particular delivered excellently in the death overs to win the match by 13 runs for PBKS.
Sam Curran won the 'Player of the Match' award for his half-century.
With this win, PBKS is in the fifth position with four wins and three losses in seven matches and a total of eight points. MI is at seventh position with three wins and three losses in six games and a total of six points.
Brief scores PBKS: 214/8 (Sam Curran 55, Harpreet Singh 41, Piyush Chawla 2/15) won over MI: 201/6 (Cameron Green 67, Suryakumar Yadav 57, Arshdeep Singh 4/29).
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