Punjab Kings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore Highlights today Friday, 30-04-2021 – 26th Match (N), Indian Premier League season 14th from Narendra Modi Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad.
RCB won the toss and chose to bowl first.
Rahul: Moises and Arshdeep miss out, Mayank got hit last game and he’s not feeling. Prabhsimran, Harpreet and Riley come in.
Kohli: Saw the game last night, short boundary on one side decided to bowl. Shahbaz Ahmed comes in for Washington Sundar. Looking at their combination and what he offers in all three departments, we brought him in. We’re not looking at the table and how many points and wins and all that. We’ve stepped in with 6 or 7 options every game, so I can literally throw the ball to anyone. That can give me space to execute plans.
IPL 2021 Points Table
Punjab Kings team: 1 KL Rahul (capt & wk), 2 Prabhsimran Singh, 3 Chris Gayle, 4 Deepak Hooda, 5 Nicholas Pooran, 6 Shahrukh Khan, 7 Chris Jordan, 8 Harpreet Brar, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Riley Meredith.
Royal Challengers Bangalore team: 1 Virat Kohli (capt), 2 Devdutt Padikkal, 3 Rajat Patidar, 4 Glenn Maxwell, 5 AB de Villiers, 6 Shahbaz Ahmed, 7 Kyle Jamieson, 8 Daniel Sams, 9 Harshal Patel, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal.
Post match presentation
Virat Kohli: They got off to a decent start and we pulled things back decently. Probably gave away 25 too much at the end, should have been chasing 160. Had a chat about executing our plans, which we did, but in the end, we strayed away. With the bat we never got the momentum, they bowled well, to be honest. Just kept the pressure going. But as batsmen as well we could have tried more things at the start. It was tough to hit through the line. It was about making a partnership and making sure you’re there to keep getting the boundaries, bat at a strike rate of at least 110.
We didn’t manage to do that. We understand the areas where we lost momentum. The composition of our team is such that someone like Rajat if you see the last game, controlled the game for us. We give him that freedom and sometimes it doesn’t work out. Maxi and AB at 4 and 5 have worked well for us, when there’s a partnership early, one of them will come off. Didn’t work today but Rajat’s a quality player. A bit of a positive at the end pulled things back nicely. Harshal and Jamo struck a few at the end. A loss of 60-65 would’ve hurt more.
Chris Jordan: I wasn’t really thinking too much [about the speeds he bowled] but obviously nice to be pushing the 140s. Not touched 150 yet but I’ll definitely get one soon, I’m sure. To be honest, when we got to that total we were very happy. At one stage, we were saying we would be happy between 158 and 162. We were able to take wickets and stop their momentum. Probably at the end there it was a bit untidy, but we’re doing well and need to build on it. We always talk about doing things as a team, even if the batters don’t do well, we as bowlers try to do it right and vice versa. That’s how teams build and you can hopefully see more of that from us in the tournament.
KL Rahul: We were preparing him [Harprett], I can say that now after a game like this. We needed a finger spinner who could hit the hard lengths and get some spin. And we’re happy it worked out. I’ve been trying to speak to the boys, whatever little experience I have of international and IPL, pass it onto them. They have enormous talent but as captains, it’s important we prepare them for the pressure in the situations.
There’s nothing in particular [about performing against RCB]. We’ve always played them, at least the last 4 innings, in must-win games. So I try and do well and set up a target and it’s worked out. There’ll always be talks outside the team about whether Gayle should be playing at this age, but I know as a captain what it feels like to have a man like him. He keeps getting more and more dominant. The last season onwards he’s batted at 3 and that’s the kind of man he is, does anything for the team. It’s nice to have that kind of experience in the middle.
Harpreet Brar is the Player of the Match.
Harpreet Brar: They’ll be happy at home I’m sure, it’s their best wishes that have got me here. I didn’t feel anything about being hit for six because a bowler always has a chance to come back. So I knew I could come back. My first IPL wicket is Virat paaji and that helps. Your body opens up, you get confident, and things fall into place. When I went into bat there was time to wait and see for an over or two. Rahul Bhai was there at the other end to talk to me about the conditions and such.
Match Timings: 14:00 GMT | 19:30 Local
Umpires – Sundaram Ravi, Virender Sharma
TV Umpires – Jayaraman Madanagopal
Match Referee – Shakti Singh
Reserve Umpire – Yeshwant Barde
Match number – IPL Season 14th 26th Match
