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On April 28 (Friday), Punjab Kings suffered a heavy 56-run defeat against Lucknow Super Giants at PCA I.S. Bindra Stadium, Mohali. After winning the toss, the captain Shikhar Dhawan chose to bowl first, but his decision backfired drastically as the opposition ended up posting 257/5 total on the board, the second highest score in the history of IPL. Kagiso Rabada was in the thick of the action for PBKS as he picked up a couple of early wickets in the LSG innings but gave away 52 runs in his quota of 4 overs.
In the field, Punjab Kings' attack was guilty of conceding 15 extras, including 4 no-balls and 5 wides, at the time when Lucknow batters were severe on them, even while they bowled good deliveries. As a designated leader of the bowling group, Kagiso Rabada didn’t do himself or his team any favours either by delivering two no-balls in his spell.
When the South African speedster bowled his second no-ball on the fifth delivery of the 16th over, Simon Doull was none too impressed with him on commentary. He teared into Rabada and said, “This is unacceptable behaviour. You are an international bowler. He's pushing it all the time, even when he is behind he is just there by an inch.”
In the cricket fraternity, it is generally expected that any bowler, irrespective of their class and quality, will get hit from time to time in T20 cricket, but what isn’t expected is the plethora of no-balls which puts the team under tremendous pressure to control the scoring rate of the opposition.
Meanwhile, Kagiso Rabada has played only three matches for PBKS in this year's IPL till now, because he arrived late to the setup owing to his international commitments. Also, he has picked up 5 wickets for Punjab in the IPL 2023 with a poor economy of 10.16 thus far.