Siddharth Kaul Delivers Last Over Glory; Delhi Defeat Punjab By 2 Runs

Siddharth Kaul continued his habit of successfully defending runs in the final over of the game – which he learned in IPL 2017 – and successfully led Punjab to a narrow two-run victory over Delhi.

Kaul had 13 runs to save in the last over, with Lalit Yadav and Pawan Negi at the crease and the bowler did the job successfully.

After being asked to bat first, Punjab had a great start as openers, Manan Vohra and Mandeep Singh provided a great start to the team. They posted 54 runs in 5.4 overs for the first wicket before Mandeep was caught by Navdeep Saini at mid-on off Pawan Negi.

Anmolpreet Singh, the number three batsman, tried to accelerate his innings right from the start and was caught by Nitish Rana off Negi while trying to play a lofted shot.

Yuvraj Singh was next man at the crease, who was greeted with cheer by the crowd. On one side, Yuvraj tried to build Punjab’s innings while on the other, Manan continued big hitting.

Tejas Baroka, who was making his debut for Delhi, was the main target of Manan as the batsman hit two sixes off him in his second over. Yuvraj too joined the party and sent the bowler out of the park once. Baroka leaked 23 runs in his second over and in total, gave away 32 runs.

Rishabh Pant and Gautam Gambhir opened the innings for Delhi in pursuit of 171. They did not hurry and made the things look easy by accumulating runs easily. Rishabh, in the midst, was hitting boundaries.

Confusion in the 10th over of Delhi’s innings between the openers saw Rishabh going back to the pavilion. It was a tight single, but a straight throw from Anmolpreet Singh was enough for wicketkeeper Abhishek Gupta to find Rishabh short of his crease.

Nitish Rana joined his senior in the middle and contributed 29 runs before getting dismissed.

In last five overs, Delhi needed 50 runs with Gambhir still on the crease. From there, the game bent in both directions like a see-saw and went until the last over

Kaul, once again, showed his prowess of bowling in the final overs and stole the game from Delhi.

Brief scores: Punjab 170/3 (Manan Vohra 74, Yuvraj Singh 50*; Pawan Negi 2-8) defeat Delhi 168/4 (Gautam Gambhir 66*, Rishabh Pant 38; Sandeep Sharma 1-24) by 2 runs.