IPL: Punjab make their winning start by defeating Kolkata in rain interrupted match

Under the captaincy of Shikhar Dhawan, Punjab Kings started their journey with a win by defeating Kolkata Knight Riders by seven runs under the Duckworth-Lewis method in the first and second match of the tournament played in the IPL today. In the match at their home ground Mohali, Punjab were invited to bat first by Kolkata after winning the toss. Punjab scored 191 runs while batting first. In response, Kolkata’s team managed to score 146 runs for seven wickets in 16 overs until the match was called off due to rain and lost by seven runs under the Duckworth-Lewis method.

Superb batting from Punjab batsmen

Let us tell you that while batting first, Punjab Kings have scored 191 runs losing five wickets. Bhanuka Rajapakse top-scored for Punjab with his maiden IPL half-century, scoring 50 runs. At the same time, captain Shikhar Dhawan 40, Sam Karan 26, Prabhsimran Singh 23 and Jitesh Sharma were dismissed after scoring 21 runs. For Kolkata, Tim Southee took two, Umesh Yadav, Sunil Narine and Varun Chakraborty took one wicket each.

Punjab won the match by seven runs

After this, the team of Kolkata, who came to chase this target, could score only 146 runs by losing seven wickets in 16 overs till the arrival of rain. By the time the match was stopped, Shardul Thakur was playing eight runs in three balls and Sunil Narine was playing seven runs in two balls. By this time, the Kolkata team was seven runs behind the target of 153 under the Duckworth-Lewis method. For this reason, Kolkata had to face defeat by the same margin. For Kolkata, Andre Russell scored the highest 35 runs in 19 balls. Apart from him, Venkatesh Iyer scored 34 runs in 28 balls, captain Nitish Rana scored 24 runs in 17 balls and Gurbaj scored 22 runs in 16 balls. For Punjab, Arshdeep took three wickets, Sam Karan, Nathan Sikandar Raza and Rahul Chahar took one wicket each.