Blistering half-centuries by Liam Livingstone and Jonny Bairstow earned Punjab Kings a crucial 54-run win over Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League on Friday. Virat Kohli’s long run of poor batting form in the IPL continued when he fell for 20 and Bangalore limped to 155-9 after Punjab made a formidable 209-9. Kohli has only 236 runs with one half-century in 12 games this season. The big win lifted Punjab to sixth and still in the race for a top-four place in the playoffs with two league games to go. Bangalore barely hung to fourth place after its fourth loss in six games.
Here is how the IPL Points table looks like after PBKS’s win:
Punjab Kings’ 54-run win over Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Brabourne Stadium on Saturday took them to within two points of fourth place. RCB themselves are the team placed fourth with 14 points but their net run rate of -0.323 is now lesser than that of both Delhi Capitals and PBKS below them. PBKS are sixth behind DC because of their net run rate of 0.023 is lesser than that of Rishabh Pant’s side’s 0.210.
Orange Cap:
Liam Livingstone has jumped up to sixth in the standings thanks to his 42-ball 70. Livingstone has now scored 385 runs in 12 innings at an extraordinary strike rate of 180.75. Meanwhile, Faf du Plessis and Shikhar Dhawan remain in the top five despite not disturbing the scorers too much on Friday. Du Plessis was dismissed for 10 runs while Dhawan fell after scoring 21 in 15 balls. Jos Buttler, KL Rahul and David Warner retain the top three spots.
Purple Cap:
It was in the Purple Cap table that arguably the biggest move happened as Hasaranga ended Chahal’s long run at the top. Hasaranga and Chahal are both tied at 23 wickets but the Sri Lankan has a better average and economy than the Rajasthan Royals spinner. Kagiso Rabada remains third, having taken three wickets on Friday and taken his tally to 21. Harshal Patel has stormed into the top five. He toom four wickets against PBKS which took his tally to 18 wickets. His better economy puts him above fifth-placed Delhi Capitals spinner Kuldeep Yadav, who has also taken 18 wickets.
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