Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh) [India], May 5 (ANI): Punjab Kings (PBKS) began their home leg of the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala with a solid 37-run win over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). After being asked to bat, PBKS opener Prabhsimran Singh continued his stunning form and smashed 91 runs off 48 balls at a strike rate of 189.58 with six fours and seven sixes. With late fireworks from PBKS captain Shreyas Iyer (45 off 25 balls), Shashank Singh (33* off 15 balls) and Marcus Stoinis (15* off 5 balls), Punjab posted a mammoth total of 236/5 in 20 overs, according to a release from PBKS.
Left-arm speedster Arshdeep Singh attacked with the ball early on to dismantle Lucknow’s top-order. With a spell of 16/3 in his four overs, Arshdeep shackled the opposition. Despite a solid innings from Ayush Badoni who scored 74 runs in the chase, Punjab managed to get an easy win.
Head coach Ricky Ponting addressed the media at the post match presentation ceremony and praised Prabhsimran for his performance and said, “He has done brilliantly througout the tournament. Priyansh and Prabhsimrabn have got off to a good starts throughout the tournament. Before tonight, both made 350 runs each. I challenged both openers today for one of them to get a hundred in this match. Unfortunately, Prabhsimran fell little bit short,” as quoted from a release by PBKS.
“He’s a very, very good young player and he’s very keen to bring success to this team and that showed with the way that he played tonight,” Ponting further added.
Ponting also explained his side’s strategy going into the match as they promoted Josh Inglis up the order to bat at no. 3. Inglis repaid the faith, scoring brisk 30 off 14 balls.
“It was a move that the captain Iyer came up with. He felt if we lose an early wicket, it would be the right to send Inglis in. We felt that Mayank Yadav would bowl early on and he generally bowls short and that’s one of Inglis’s great strengths as you saw tonight. Those pull shots were pretty amazing straight away,” he noted.
Ponting also praised Arshdeep for his bowling performance and said the pacer is gaining confidence as the tournament is progressing.
“Arshdeep has got better and better every game. He’s got more confident and starting to get those powerplay wickets now that we know that he can with that brand new ball. His first over tonight set the tone for our bowling innings. He’s a star and we’re very lucky to have him in our team,” he said.
Ponting also praised the crowd in Dharamsala for making their voices heard and hoped to have similar reception and atmosphere in the upcoming games.
“What I liked tonight was the crowd and the atmosphere. It’s a beautiful stadium. We want to make sure that we are winning our home games. We want to make this a ground that opposition teams find it hard to play on. It was a great start for us tonight. We play Delhi here in a couple of days and I am sure we will get a good crowd again and hopefully the boys can do the same job again,” he said.
Punjab Kings will next face off against Delhi Capitals at the same venue on Thursday. (ANI)
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