The Punjab Kings (PBKS) suffered their second consecutive defeat after they had won their first two matches, as Gujarat Titans (GT) defeated Shikhar Dhawan’s side by 6 wickets in what was another last-over thriller that the IPL 2023 delivered.
Shubman Gill made batting look much easier on this two-paced pitch than it really was, scoring 67 runs in the chase of 155 after the bowlers had done a good job of restricting PBKS to 154.
Here are 3 reasons why Punjab Kings lost today vs Gujarat Titans:
Losing both openers early
On what wasn’t as good a batting pitch as it had been in the first match in Mohali, PBKS lost both their openers, the aggressive Prabhsimran Singh and the anchor batter Shikhar Dhawan, inside 4 overs. They then lost Matthew Short soon after the powerplay, in the 7th over. This meant that PBKS weren’t quite able to utilize the powerplay as they would have hoped for, and not certainly as they would have wanted on a pitch that got difficult to play big strokes as the match progressed.
PBKS bowlers not being able to dismiss Shubman Gill
It took 19.2 overs and a wild, uncharacteristic slog from Shubman Gill for the PBKS bowlers to dismiss the GT opener. It wasn’t the flattest of the pitches in Mohali, and certainly not as Gill made it seem by middling about 90% of the shots he played.
Gill anchored from his end, almost just what was needed to chase this total of 154, scoring 67 runs off 49 balls, with 7 sumptuous fours and a stunning pull shot six to Rabada.
Dismissing Gill early would surely have done PBKS a big boost, but they couldn’t get the opener out until the last over of the chase. By then, Gill had left Tewatia and Miller to just do their job of finishing.
No PBKS batter being able to play a big innings like Gill did
At the post-match presentation, Shikhar Dhawan admitted this, that PBKS batters didn’t get going, played too many dot balls. The top-scorer for them was Short with 36 runs while 4 other batters got into 20s, but didn’t go on to play a significant knock.
“We did not put many runs on the board. We have to rectify that thing going forward. Absolutely – if you see the number of dot balls, if a team plays 56 balls, you end up losing the game,” Dhawan said.
