PBKS vs KKR IPL 2023: Shikhar Dhawan's Punjab Kings began their IPL 2023 campaign with a win over Nitish Rana's Kolkata Knight Riders in Mohali. The Kings defeated the Knight Riders in a high-scoring game at the Punjab Cricket Association IS Bindra Stadium, Mohali as they won by 7 runs on the DLS method.
KKR found it hard to chase PBKS' score of 191 as they suffered a few early blows. Venkatesh Iyer and Nitish Rana stabilised the ship before the latter fell at a crucial stage. Meanwhile, Andre Russell was going behind the PBKS attack but was caught out off Sam Curran's ball. After Iyer's wicket, it became very difficult for the purple army as rain intervened after 16 overs when KKR were at 146/7. The game did not resume and Punjab won by 7 runs via DLS method. The top scorer for KKR was Andre Russell with his 19-ball 35, which kept their hopes alive. Venkatesh scored 34 off 28. For PBKS, Arshdeep Singh was the pick of the bowlers with his 3-wicket haul in 3 overs for 19 runs.
Riding on the back of brilliant contributions from all of the top seven, Punjab registered a total of 191. Bhanuka Rajapaksa got a fiery fifty while Shikhar Dhawan played fine for his 40 off 29. The middle order powered the Kings to a decent total. Jitesh, Raza, Sam Curran and Shahrukh Khan provided the finishing touches with Curran being the top scorer among the four with 26 runs in 17 balls. For PBKS, Rajapaksa turned out to be the highest run scorer with his 50-run knock from 32 balls. Dhawan scored 40 in 29 balls. For KKR, they had Chakaravarthy and Umesh taking one wicket each and being economical. While Southee took 2 but leaked way too many runs.
PBKS Playing XI:
Shikhar Dhawan (c), Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Jitesh Sharma, Shahrukh Khan, Sam Curran, Sikandar Raza, Nathan Ellis, Harpreet Brar, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh
KKR Playing XI:
Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Mandeep Singh, Nitish Rana (c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Shardul Thakur, Sunil Narine, Tim Southee, Anukul Roy, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy
