Mayank Agarwal led Punjab Kings (PBKS) thrashed Gujarat Titans (GT) by eight wickets on Tuesday at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. A fiery knock from Shikhar Dhawan (62 off 53) and a blockbuster cameo from Liam Livingstone (30 off 10) helped the side in registering their 5th win of the season.
Interestingly, Punjab Kings captain Mayank Agarwal didn’t open the innings along with Shikhar Dhawan last night. Jonny Bairstow was promoted to open the innings with Shikhar Dhawan. However, Bairstow was dismissed after scoring only one run. In the game last night, Agarwal was slated to bat at number five.
𝐇𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐮𝐛𝐡𝐚𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐡, 𝐡𝐨 𝐬𝐡𝐮𝐛𝐡𝐚𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐡, 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐥 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐚 𝐚𝐚𝐲𝐢!
#SaddaPunjab #PunjabKings #IPL2022 #ਸਾਡਾਪੰਜਾਬ #GTvPBKS pic.twitter.com/cOO1KkHV63
— Punjab Kings (@PunjabKingsIPL) May 3, 2022
Later, after the game, speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony, Mayank Agarwal revealed the reason behind him not opening in the game. Explaining the reason, Mayank revealed that the team wanted to get the best out of Jonny Bairstow. He stated:
“We would like to string a few (wins), no better time than getting a few wins back-to-back. We are trying to get the best out of Jonny. He’s done well opening. I said, ‘It’s okay, I’ll bat at four, I’ll anchor the innings at four’. With Livi it was clear, Shikhar to bat through and Livi could go out and play the way he wants to play. It was nice the way he played, got the score quickly.”
Further, he also said that Livingstone was promoted to get the required runs quickly so that the Net Run Rate of the team could be improved. He said:
” When we got to that position, two points are almost clear, if we can score it as quickly as possible, we could also improve the Net Run-Rate.”
Punjab Kings chased down the target of 144 runs in just 16 overs, riding on the stunning knock of Shikhar Dhawan, who scored an unbeaten 62 runs. Bhanuka Rajapaksha and Liam Livingstone also played crucial innings of 40 and 30 runs respectively to help the side win their 5th game of the ongoing season.
