Delhi, May 13 (Hindustan Times). Punjab Kings defeated Delhi Capitals by 31 runs in the 59th match of IPL 2023 played at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. With this win, Punjab has kept its hopes alive for the playoffs, while after the eighth defeat, the road to the playoffs has been closed for Delhi Capitals. The hero of this victory of Punjab was opener Prabhsimran Singh, who scored the first century of his IPL career. On the other hand, talking about bowling, Harpreet Brar (4 wickets) made the Delhi batsmen do bhangra on the basis of his spin.
Chasing the target of 168 runs given by Punjab, Delhi Capitals got off to a great start. Captain Warner and Phil Salt added 65 runs in six overs of the powerplay. However, after this the Delhi team completely faltered. Delhi, who lost the first wicket for 69 runs in the seventh over, lost six wickets for 88 runs in the tenth over. After this, somehow the tail batsmen completed the stipulated 20 overs and the team could reach 136 runs. For Punjab, Harpreet Brar took 4 wickets, Nathan Ellis and Rahul Chahar took two wickets each.
Earlier, putting in to bat after losing the toss, Punjab did not get off to a good start. Captain Shikhar Dhawan, Livingstone and Jitesh Sharma were out early. Then opener Prabhsimran Singh along with Sam Karan handled the innings. There was a 72-run partnership between the two. Then Sam Karan also returned to the pavilion after scoring 20 runs. For Punjab, wickets kept falling at regular intervals but Prabhsimran held one end and scored a brilliant century. Prabhsimran Singh played an inning of 103 runs in 65 balls. It was because of his fine innings that Punjab Kings scored 167 runs at the loss of 7 wickets. Ishant Sharma took two wickets for Delhi. While Akshar Patel, Praveen Dubey, Kuldeep Yadav and Mukesh Kumar got one wicket each.
