Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Delhi Capitals (DC) clashed in the 64th match of the IPL 2023 on May 17, 2023, at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamsala. Shikhar Dhawan had won the toss and chose to bowl first in Dharamshala.
PBKS included Kagiso Rabada and Atharva Taide while Anrich Nortje and Prithvi Shaw were back for DC.
David Warner and Prithvi Shaw added 94 runs for the first wicket with the captain falling for 46 runs. Shaw made 54 in 38 balls, his first fifty this IPL 2023.
But the best knock came from Rilee Russouw who made 82* in 37 balls with 6 fours and 6 sixes and also added 65* runs with Phil Salt who slammed 26* in 14 balls to take DC to 213/2 in 20 overs.
Sam Curran was the bowler to take both the DC wickets.
Shikhar Dhawan and Prabhsimran Singh, who was coming off a fantastic century in his previous outing, started for the Punjab Kings as they had a target of 214 to win the match and stay in the running for the playoffs.
In the second over, Shikhar Dhawan attacked Ishant Sharma, a former teammate from India, and was caught in the slips on the very first ball of the over. After Punjab Kings lost a wicket early, Atharva Taide and Prabhsimran Singh made a strong comeback with a 50-run partnership.
When Prabhsimran got out for 22, Atharva Taide and Liam Livingstone attacked the DC bowlers, and their shoddy handling of the ball with butter hands helped them.
Unable to hit big shots, Taide retired out for 55, becoming only the second batter in IPL history to be dismissed this way.
It was then up to Liam Livingstone, who went on to hammer 94 in 48 balls with 9 sixes and 5 fours as despite scoring 20 runs in the 17th over and 21 runs in the 19th over, PBKS and Livingstone couldn’t make the 33 runs in the last over.
Livingstone hit Ishant Sharma for two sixes, one off a no-ball and one four, but it was not enough as only 17 runs were scored and DC won by 15 runs.
DC now has 10 points from 13 games, while PBKS has 12 points from 13 games and thanks to their poor net run rate they have a slim chance of playoffs qualification even if they win their final match.
The cricket fraternity lauded DC's win this high-scoring encounter.
Here are the tweets:
