After a heart-breaking Super Over loss against Delhi in their opening Indian T20 League (Indian T20 League) 2020 match, Punjab picked up their first win of the season thanks to an inspiring knock by their skipper KL Rahul.
The Punjab captain scored an unbeaten 132 to help his team beat Bangalore by 97 runs and surge to the top of the standings on the back of a superior Net Run Rate. Here are some key talking points from the contest:
Misfiring Bangalore pacers
Bangalore’s pace battery will know that they must do much better than they have done in their first two matches if Bangalore want to go deep into the tournament. Their pace trio of Dale Steyn, Umesh Yadav and Navdeep Saini combined for no wickets and were hit for 129 runs from 11 overs. Yadav and Steyn were expensive in Bangalore’s last match against Hyderabad as well, going for 48 from 4 overs and 33 from 3.4 overs respectively.
Steyn, who has had his fair share of harrowing experiences in the Indian T20 League, had another off day at the office against Punjab. The South African bowler was pummeled to all parts of the ground by KL Rahul and ended up conceding 57 from his four overs. It was the most runs he has ever conceded in the Indian T20 League and his previous worse return was also against the same opposition while he was in Hyderabad colours, conceding 51 runs from his four overs.
Kohli’s woes against left-armers
After being dismissed by Thangarasu Natarajan in Bangalore’s season opener, Virat Kohli fell at the hands of another left-arm pacer in Sheldon Cottrell. Kohli perished trying to pull a short ball in a fashion reminiscent to quite a few of his dismissals in the recent past. Since the 2017 edition of the Indian T20 League, eight of his 37 dismissals in the Indian T20 League have come against left-arm