IPL 2023: Rain Interrupts Match, Punjab Kings Have Strong Hold On Match; KKR Needs 46 Runs In 24 Balls
Mohali, 1st April 2023: In the second match of IPL 2023, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) won the toss and invited Punjab Kings to bat first. Punjab also got off to a strong start on the Pata pitch in Mohali, scoring 50 runs in five overs. Opener Prabhsimran Singh scored 23 runs off 12 balls. But Tim Southee dismissed him in the second over and gave a big relief to KKR.
After Prabhsimran’s dismissal, Shikhar Dhawan and Bhanuka Rajapaksa started playing aggressively. Rajapaksa scored a brilliant half-century to bring Punjab to the century mark in the 11th over. But Rajapaksa was dismissed after scoring 50 runs in 32 balls. On the other side, Shikhar was batting cautiously.
Jitesh Sharma, who came after Rajapaksa’s dismissal, scored 21 runs in 11 balls, but he was silenced by Southee After this, Varun Chakravarthy took the wicket of Shikhar Dhawan for 40 runs. Sikandar Raza and Sam Curran brought the team to 150 runs while Punjab was reduced to 143 for four wickets.
But in the last five overs, KKR started to take control of the match. Sunil Narine dismissed Raza for 16 runs. Then Curran scored 26 off 17 balls and Shahrukh Khan scored 11 runs off seven balls to take the team to 191 for five wickets in 20 overs.
When KKR scored 146 for 7, the match was stopped due to the onset of rain. This was the second time the match was stopped. First, the match was stopped due to a technical fault in the lights. Now the match was stopped due to rain. KKR needed 46 runs to win from 24 balls when the match was stopped.