IPL 2021: Punjab Kings beat Rajasthan Royals by 4 runs in a nail-biting contest, RR’s skipper Sanju Samson’s 119 goes In Vain

Chasing a mammoth 222-run target, Sanju Samson scored an impressive 119 off 63 balls but failed to take Rajasthan Royals home. The Royals lost the thriller by 4 runs to give Punjab Kings a winning start in their campaign. Sent in to bat, KL Rahul (91) and Deepak Hooda (64) added 105 runs for the third wicket to power Punjab Kings to 221/6 in their 20 overs.

Even in 2020, Sanju Samson of Rajasthan played a memorable inning. On Monday, Samson played the same role once again, this time a century came off from his bat but he failed to repeat history by getting out on the last ball of the match.

In this innings, Sanju scored 119 runs with the help of 12 fours and seven sixes in 63 balls at a strike rate of 188.88. But on the last ball of the match, when he had to score five runs to win, he could not hit a six and be caught by Deepak Hooda on the boundary off the ball of Arshdeep Singh. with this, Punjab won this thrilling match by four runs.

In the Rajasthan innings, apart from Sanju, Riyan Parag and Jos Buttler scored an identical score of 25 runs. At the same time, Shivam Dube contributed 23 runs.

22-year-old Arshdeep Singh, who threw the last over of the match, took the maximum of three wickets for Punjab.

Punjab Kings innings:

KL Rahul also played the captaincy innings in the Punjab innings. He scored 91 runs in 50 balls with the help of seven fours and five sixes. This is Rahul’s 23rd half-century in the IPL. During this time, Rahul also completed 2000 runs in IPL.

Along with Rahul, Deepak Hooda scored 64 runs off 28 balls. Deepak Hooda hit four fours and six sixes in his innings. Together with captain Rahul, he played a century (105 runs) partnership for the third wicket.

Earlier, captain Rahul also made a half-century partnership with Chris Gayle for the second wicket. Both added 67 runs for the second wicket. Chris Gayle scored 40 runs in 28 balls with the help of four fours and two sixes. He was dismissed by Riyan Parag.

After winning the toss in the match, Rajasthan Royals invited the Punjab Kings to bat. Captain KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal started the innings for Punjab. Rajasthan Royals got the first success in the third over in the form of Mayank Agarwal’s wicket.

Mayank Agarwal was caught by Rajasthan Royals wicket-keeper captain Sanju Samson on the ball of Chetan Sakariya, playing his first match. Mayank scored 14 runs off nine balls before being dismissed.

Punjab had scored 22 runs until Mayank was dismissed on the fourth ball of the third over (2.4 overs).

Chris Gayle came on the pitch after Mayank was dismissed. Chris Gayle hit his 350th six in the IPL during his innings, which was also the first six imposed by Punjab in this match.

Gayle’s six hits in the eighth over during the Punjab batting. Ben Stokes was doing it over. On the first ball of this over, KL Rahul hit a four, Rahul scored a run on the second ball, and then on the third ball, Chris Gayle hit the first of the match and his 350th six in the IPL.

For the second wicket, captain Rahul played a half-century with Chris Gayle and a century partnership for the third wicket, and Punjab scored 221 for 6 wickets in 20 overs.