The 16th match of the ongoing IPL 2022 was played between Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on April 8. In this nail-biting contest, there was fierce competition between the two teams, but in the end, the victory went to the new franchise.
In the crunch situation of the match, Punjab Kings (PBKS) captain Mayank Agarwal handed the ball to Odean Smith to defend 19 runs in the final over against Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Brabourne Stadium.
The Caribbean all-rounder started brilliantly, as the first ball of the 20th oversaw Gujarat Titans (GT) skipper Hardik Pandya getting run out, and the match almost turned in the PBKS’ favor. Well, Rahul Tewatia shatters PBKS’ hopes by smashing two sixes when GT needed 12 runs off the last 2 balls to win the game for the new franchise by 6 wickets in the ongoing IPL 2022.
It was a bitter pill to swallow for Smith and the PBKS; however the skipper Mayank Agarwal backed his bowler and said that anything can happen in the final over.
After the match, Agarwal told the broadcasters, “Last over could have been anyone’s game. We totally back Odean, it’s fine, he probably had a hard game but that’s fine. We back him a 100%. It’s just a game of cricket, it could be a bitter one to swallow but it's fine. The talk in the group is we always back the guys. If he has a bad day, he has a bad day, no worries, we back him 100%.”
He signed off by saying, “It was a tough game but we really fought hard. We were 5-7 runs short but we pulled it back after the start they had. There were a lot of positives for us. We did really well to get ourselves to that score after losing so many wickets, so we were very happy with that. We fought really hard on the field. It was great execution by both of them (Rabada and Arshdeep), a fantastic effort by them to pull the game, they really got us in the game.”
Notably, PBKS will now face Mumbai Indians (MI) in their next IPL 15 fixture on April 13 at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune.
