The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 witnessed an edge-of-the seat thriller on Monday at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
The high scoring match saw Punjab Kings (PBKS) their captain KL Rahul score a magnificent 91 off 50 balls with seven fours and five sixes, while the middle-order batsman Deepak Hooda smashed a swashbuckling 64 off 28 balls at an awe-inspiring strike rate of 228.57. Thus Punjab posted a total of 221 in their allotted 20 overs.
In the bowling department for Punjab, the last over of the innings was crucial as the match was poised in the middle and could have gone either side. In these tough times, Rahul turned to his left-hand pacer Arshdeep Singh.
Singh, till then, had conceded 27 runs off his three overs, picking up the crucial wickets of Manan Vohra and Shivam Dube.
The 22-year-old didn’t allow the Royals’ captain to win the game for his team. He only gave away eight runs off the final over and also picked up Samson’s wicket on the last ball.
The Jaipur-based franchise led by their captain Sanju Samson came as close as needing five runs off the last over.
Samson scored 63-ball 119 with 12 fours and seven sixes and was declared the ‘Player of the Match’ in the losing cause.
At the post-match conference, the Guna-born said that all he did was back himself and kept things simple. He discussed it with his captain and decided to bluff the batsman.
“I just back myself, and the way support staff or the bowling coach said to back myself and try to keep the things simple and back the plan which has been devised after speaking to the captain and if you have to bluff, bluff the batsmen and not the captain,” Singh said.
He further added that PBKS had set the field, and the plan was to ball in wide yorkers to make it difficult for Samson to win.
“The field was set and the plan that he was to fed (with) wide (balls), had to try and bowl wide yorkers and if we could execute all the six balls then it would be difficult for him,” the match-winner remarked.
According to the Punjab-pacer, every team practices bowling at the depth with dew, but the dew wasn’t a big factor in the match.
“I guess every team now practices bowling at the depth with the dew, everyone knows that there will be some dew, but I don’t think that there was that much of dew tonight, and yes every team practices because you prepare for everything,” Singh added.
The left-armer further asserted that every team in the IPL2021 has potential, and one cannot write off any team.
“The wicket was pretty good and they batted really well and I guess IPL is such a big stage and such a good league, you cannot write off any team,” he signed off.
