Kings find chink in Knight Riders’ armour to claim thrilling victory

Yuzvendra Chahal returned with career-best tournament figures of 4-28 while pacer Marco Jansen picked three scalps to stage a thrilling 16-run win for Punjab Kings against Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL 2025 at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday.

IPL 2025: Chahal, Jansen power Punjab to historic win against KKR in low-scoring thriller New Chandigarh, April 15 (IANS) Yuzvendra Chahal returned with career-best tournament figures of 4-28 while pacer Marco Jansen picked three scalps to stage a thrilling 16-run win for Punjab Kings against Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL 2025 at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday.

Punjab bowlers bowled with a plethora of courage to pull off a thriller as they defended the lowest total in the IPL’s history.

Earlier, Harshit Rana claimed three wickets while the spin duo of Varun Chakaravarthy and Sunil Narine bagged two scalps each to bundle out Punjab Kings for 111 in 15.3 overs.

Chasing 112, Kolkata lost both their openers Sunil Narine (5) and Quinton de Kock (2) in quick intervals as Marco Jansen and debutant Xavier Bartlett gave the early breakthroughs to Punjab.

Captain Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi took a cautious approach and steered the side to 55/2 at the end of the powerplay. The duo stitched a 60-run partnership as the KKR were looking confident to win the match.

However, Yuzvendra Chahal brought Punjab back into the game with the wicket of Rahane (17) in the eighth over. Chahal, in his next over, sent Raghuvanshi back to the pavilion. He scored 37 including five fours and a six after coming as an impact substitute. It was a horror show from KKR’s middle order as Venkatesh Iyer (7), Rinku Singh (2) and Ramandeep Singh (0) played foolish shots on spinners to end up on the losing side. Harshit Rana and Vaibhav Arora too failed to cope with the pressure and threw their wickets cheaply.

In the end, Andre Russell gave some sigh of hope with his counterattacking stroke play but Marco Jansen ended his 17-run stay to make it possible for Punjab to defend the lowest total in IPL’s history.

Opting to bat first, Punjab Kings had a flying start with openers Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya pressing on throttle against Anrich Nortje and Vaibhav Arora in the powerplay. It was Arya who took the charge on speedster Nortje, who was making his KKR debut, and slamming two fours in his first over.

In the next over, Prabhsimran stepped on the gas and scored two fours and a six before Arya joined with a boundary to make it 20 runs from the over.

Pacer Harshit Rana’s introduction to the attack in the fourth over gave some respite to KKR as he sent back Delhi opener Arya for 22 with Ramandeep Singh completing a fabulous catch in the deep. A ball before, Arya hammered the pacer over extra cover for an 82-metre maximum.

Punjab captain Shreyas Iyer joined Prabhsimran in the middle but the former’s stay was cut short after he was dismissed for a two-ball duck. It was the start of a horrific batting collapse for the home side.

To maximise the situation, Rahane brought in Varun Chakaravarthy and the move worked well as the spinner clinched IPL debutant Josh Inglis (2) to give another blow to Punjab in the powerplay.

However, Prabhsimran tried to release the pressure with two successive sixes off Harshit but it was the latter who had a last laugh. The opener departed after scoring 15-ball 30 including three sixes and two fours as Punjab were 54/4 after the end of the powerplay.

The scenario didn’t improve for Punjab as Nehal Wadhera (10), who got a promising start, gave away his wicket to Nortje in the ninth over. Chakaravarthy got the better of Glenn Maxwell (7) in the next over to bag his second scalp of the night.

Narine, from the other end, sent back the impact substitute Suryansh Shedge (4) and Marco Jansen (1) in the same over to leave Punjab tottering at 86/8 in 11 overs.

Shashank Singh, who was trying to take the side to a respectable total, was trapped in front of the wickets by Vaibhav Arora to make sure he didn’t miss out on the golden opportunity. Shashank contributed 18 runs with the help of a six and a four.

Agencies

Brief scores:

Punjab Kings 111/10 in 15.3 overs (Prabhsimran Singh 30, Priyanash Arya 22; Harshit Rana 3-25, Varun Chakaravarthy 2-21, Sunil Narine 2-14) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 95/10 in 15.1 overs (Angkrish Raghuvanshi 37, Andre Russell 17; Yuzvendra Chahal 4-28, Marco Jansen 3-17) by 16 runs.