RR vs PK, IPL 2021: Punjab Kings beat Rajasthan Royals by four runs in a nail-biting match

Chasing a huge score of 222 runs Rajasthan Royals fell short by 4 runs in the last over. Rajasthan Royals' skipper Sanju Samson hit the 1st century of this season but it didn't work for his team.

    Image By: NDTV

Match: 4th Match, RR vs PK.

Venue: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.

Toss: Rajasthan Royals won the toss and opted to field.

PK Score: 221/6 in 20 overs.

RR Score: 217/7 in 20 overs.

Result: Punjab Kings won by 4 runs.

Player of the Match: Sanju Samson for scoring 119 runs in 63 balls.

Batting first, Punjab Kings put a huge total of 221 runs in 20 overs. Punjab Kings scored 46 runs in the powerplay losing Mayank Agarwal as their 1st wicket. Mayank scored 14 runs in 9 deliveries which included two boundaries. Chris Gayle joined skipper KL Rahul after the departure of Mayank Agarwal and both of them scored runs at a quick pace. Chris Gayle hammered 40 runs in just 28 balls hitting 4 fours and 2 sixes with a strike rate of 142.86. This wasn't over yet as Deepak Hooda had clear intentions to hit most of the balls out of the park. Hooda scored 64 runs in just 28 balls with 4 fours and 6 sixes. KL Rahul played a significant skipper inning in the match as he scored 91 runs off 50 balls taking his team's score above 200 runs but fell short by 9 runs to score his individual century.

Rajasthan Royals went on with three seamers in the game namely Chris Morris, Mustafizur Rahman, and Chetan Sakariya. Youngster Chetan Sakariya bowled brilliantly and produced 3 wickets for the team in his 4-over spell. Chris Morris also took 2 wickets in the game but conceded 41 runs in 4 overs. Riyan Parag also bagged a wicket bowling a single over in the match.

The start of Rajasthan Royals didn't go as expected as Ben Stokes departed without opening his account on the scoreboard. Manan Vohra scored just 12 runs off 8 deliveries and departed in the same fashion as Ben Stokes. Skipper Sanju Samson then took on the charge to score as many runs in every over. He was supported by the cameos of Jos Buttler, Shivam Dube, and Riyan Parag. Though Sanju Samson was present at the one end, wickets kept on falling at regular intervals for Rajasthan Royals from the other end. In the last over, RR had to score 13 runs with Sanju Samson present in the middle. Samson denied a single to Chris Morris with 5 runs required off 2 balls but got out in the last ball at sweeper cover. Sanju Samson was recognized as the Player of the Match for his brilliant knock of 119 runs which came in just 63 balls. Sanju scored 12 fours and 7 sixes during his innings.

Youngster Arshdeep Singh who bowled the last over to Sanju Samson and Rajasthan Royals emerged as a saviour for Punjab Kings in this match. Arshdeep bowled superbly to take 3 wickets in the match. Mohammad Shami also took 2 important wickets to contribute to the win. Jhye Richardson and Riley Meredith bagged 1 wicket each for Punjab Kings.

With this century, Sanju Samson has occupied the third spot in the ranking of scoring the total number of centuries in IPL. He shares this spot with AB de Villiers.