Courtesy: BCCI/IPL
On Monday, May 26, Punjab Kings (PBKS) defeated Mumbai Indians (MI) by seven wickets in a convincing manner with nine balls to spare in the match 69th of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. After restricting MI to a below par total of 184 runs, the top order batters of PBKS, namely Priyansh Arya and Josh Inglis produced exceptional fifties, to take their team over the line with relative ease.
For the unversed, after winning the toss, PBKS captain Shreyas Iyer decided to bowl first, but the openers Ryan Rickleton and Rohit Sharma started well for MI in the powerplay stage, stitching together 45 runs. After Rickelton fell for 27 off 20 on the bowling of Marco Jansen in the sixth over, Sharma lost his wicket not much later to Harpreet Brar after scoring 24 runs in 21 balls, but from that point onwards, Suryakumar Yadav had taken control of the MI innings.
Will Jacks (17 off 8) and captain Hardik Pandya (26 off 15) attacked the PBKS bowlers on their way to quick-fire cameos, while the Indian T20I captain kept consolidating the innings at the other end. Naman Dhir hit a couple of sixes in a row on Vijaykumar Vyshak’s penultimate over, to give the late impetus to MI innings before Suryakumar Yadav teared into the Indian pacer as well.
A couple of wickets in the last over from Arshdeep Singh, giving away just three runs, meant that MI were kept to 184/7 in their allotted overs despite a well-made 57 off 39 with six fours and two maximum. In the run chase, PBKS didn’t have the best of starts as Prabhsimran Singh struggled his way to 13 off 16, playing out a maiden from Deepak Chahar before losing his wicket to Jasprit Bumrah’s well-disguised slower ball.
From this point onwards, Priyansh Arya and Josh Inglis took the MI bowling completely apart, sharing a 109-run stand for the second wicket, matching each other stroke for stroke before completing their respective fifties. Mitchell Santner, who was quite expensive in his first couple of overs, managed to get a false stroke out of Priyansh Arya, but he had done a lot of damage to MI with his 62 off just 35 balls with nine fours and two sixes.
Josh Inglis kept the momentum of PBKS innings going alongside captain Shreyas Iyer before he was found lbw on the bowling of Mitchell Santner against the run of play after he had scored 73 runs in 42 balls with nine fours and three sixes. Ultimately, a couple of late sixes from Shreyas Iyer sealed a big victory for MI in the IPL 2025 clash, to ensure that they will be playing the Qualifier 1 in a few days time at their home stadium.
