Punjab Kings 200 for 7 (Shashank 61*, Noor 2-32) beat Gujarat Titans 199 for 4 (Gill 89, Rabada 2-44) by three wickets
Shashank hit 10 of the 29 balls he faced to the boundary. He was carting around former IPL champions. Rashid Khan, launched over midwicket, Umesh Yadav, helped over fine leg, Noor Ahmad skewered over long-off, Mohit Sharma, even when he tried to go pace off and into the wicket, ramped over the keeper. These were unbelievable shots, because they came from a place where victory was only fantasy.
This is what happens when two players look for the best boundary option that they have every single ball. But the fact that they were both uncapped, that they had very little experience at this level of the game – Shashank has played 13 matches in the IPL, but batted in just eight of those and had a high score of 25 prior to this – and were coming up with the goods even against bowlers of the calibre of the Titans was incredible.
They waited for Mohit and Azmatullah’s variations – whether they were slower balls or short balls – and it wasn’t just that they were looking to slog ’em across the line. Shashank (previously) and Ashutosh (in the death) ramped fours over the keeper. It was nerveless. It was glorious. And by the end of it, Kings had conquered their sixth target of 200 or more, a men’s T20 record.
It is still early – only four matches – but Rashid Khan has an economy rate of 9.06, his worst in an IPL season. In this game, he was lined up twice by Jitesh Sharma, leaking back-to-back sixes in the 16th over. He has already been hit out of the park nine times in IPL 2024. That’s as many sixes as he’d given up across 14 matches in 2021 and 16 matches in 2020. Titans are turning to him a little more often now because they don’t have Mohammed Shami in the powerplay and the death and it seems like he is yet to cope with that extra responsibility.