Brief Scores: Royal Challengers Bengaluru (222/4 in 20 ovs) beat Punjab Kings (199/8 in 20 ovs) by 23 runs at HPCA Stadium, Dharamsala
PBKS vs RCB: HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD
Six defeats on the bounce. Three weeks ago, Punjab Kings were the tournament’s most feared side — unbeaten through seven matches, swaggering like men who had already engraved their names on the trophy. Now, on a sun-drenched Sunday in Dharamsala, they have forgotten what winning feels like. Punjabis love their Himachal getaway, the cool air, the mountains, the escape, but this trip to the hills brought no relief, no respite, no miracles for the Punjab Kings. A must-win game against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and a 23-run loss to send their playoff campaign into the ICU.
As the sun crawled behind the Dhauladhar ranges in the long, golden Himachal evening, Punjab Kings’ hopes crawled with it, and did not come back out.
RCB, meanwhile, stormed into the playoffs, taking their tally to 18 points from 13 matches. Punjab, in stark contrast, remained marooned on 13 points for the 23rd successive day, all but condemned to an early exit.
Only one side played like a team that had contested last season’s final. RCB, who wear the ‘attacking champions’ badge with pride, did the basics right and delivered a collective effort that Shreyas Iyer and head coach Ricky Ponting — their faces etched with gloom in the dugout during the final over — could only watch and envy.
Virat Kohli picked up seamlessly from his Raipur heroics, stroking his fourth fifty of the season. Venkatesh Iyer, handed a rare opportunity, seized it with both hands — a beautifully paced 73 that silenced any questions about his prolonged absence from the XI. Devdutt Padikkal, as ever, was the enforcer-in-chief, blazing 45 off just 25 balls, while Tim David provided the finishing flourish with a typically brutal cameo.
222 lit up the scoreboard at the mid-innings break. It was the ninth time this season that Punjab had conceded more than 200 runs — and the first time any team in T20 cricket history had shipped as many 200-plus totals in a single tournament. A record nobody wants.
It has become a grimly recurring theme for the Kings. They have shuffled personnel, redrawn battle plans, tinkered endlessly. Yet their bowling frailties, long concealed by one of the most destructive batting line-ups in the competition, have been ruthlessly exposed in the second half of the season. The slide from invincible to vulnerable has been, quite frankly, beyond belief.
The same batting unit that had plundered 265 in Delhi just weeks ago found themselves powerless in response. A ferocious powerplay burst from Purple Cap holder Bhuvneshwar Kumar left them gasping at 19 for 3, the chase effectively buried before it had truly begun.
The drop in temperature should have aided strokeplay, the ball flying sweetly off the bat in the thin Dharamsala air — and Shashank Singh, who had somehow conjured a blistering 21-ball fifty after managing a paltry 66 runs across all his previous outings, proved conditions were far from unplayable. Yet Punjab Kings were restricted to 199 for 8, well short of the peak that they were aiming to scale to keep their playoffs hopes alive.
BHUVI BLOWS AWAY THE ENGINE ROOM
The engine room sputtered and stalled when it mattered most. Prabhsimran Singh, Shreyas Iyer and Priyansh Arya — the men Punjab depend on to ignite their chases — all looked like shadows of themselves, low on confidence and high on hesitation. The late-afternoon swing and bounce that Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood extracted from the Dharamsala pitch made a difficult evening almost impossible.
The wily Bhuvneshwar was in his element, moving the ball both ways and beating edges with the knowing smile of a man who has done this a thousand times before. He removed Priyansh Arya in the very first over of the defence, the opener’s tap running dry after a blistering start to the season. Prabhsimran, fresh off a fifty on Thursday, managed just 2 before flashing his blade at a length delivery and finding the slip cordon. A needless dismissal — and the kind Punjab simply could not afford.
It was not Hazlewood, but medium pacer Rasikh Dhar who then delivered the decisive blow, producing a scrambled-seam delivery in the third over that held its line, took a hint of extra bounce, and kissed the outside edge of Shreyas Iyer’s bat. Bringing Rasikh on in the fourth over, the moment he had been introduced as Impact Player, was a masterstroke — one of many shrewd tactical calls RCB have made throughout a season that increasingly looks like it belongs to them.
VIRAT KOHLI MARCHES ON
Shreyas Iyer did not think twice before opting to bowl first in the afternoon game, despite history offering little comfort. Teams batting first in afternoon games at the HPCA Stadium have managed just three wins against four defeats. The evening games at Dharamsala are a different beast, where dew makes the toss almost a foregone conclusion. But with the sun refusing to dip until 7 pm IST, this was a far trickier call.
Punjab Kings, however, backed their instincts — and more importantly, backed Harpreet Brar from the powerplay. The off-spinner had been named in their previous XI but never got on to bowl, with Punjab instead deploying Vishnu Vinod as their Impact Player after their batting order crumbled against Mumbai Indians on Thursday. They also swung the axe on Marco Jansen, who had haemorrhaged over 40 runs in four of his last five outings, handing the new ball to Azmatullah Omarzai and Arshdeep Singh instead. While Arshdeep was tidy in his opening over, Omarzai had no answer for Virat Kohli.
The batting maestro, who had drawn a packed, buzzing crowd to the hills of Dharamsala on a Sunday afternoon, unfurled a trademark drive off an outswinger and sent it sailing into the stands, immediately unsettling the Afghan pacer’s rhythm.
Brar, though, gave Punjab the foothold they craved. He snared Jacob Bethell for 11 in the third over, the Englishman’s woeful run this IPL season showing no signs of letting up. Punjab would have loved to press home that early advantage — but Devdutt Padikkal had other ideas. The very first ball he faced from Brar was dispatched into the stands with breathtaking audacity, a statement of intent wrapped in a single, clean swing.
Kohli joined the assault, flicking Lockie Ferguson over the rope with a wristy flourish that drew roars from the terraces. Together, the two refused to let either Arshdeep or Brar build any pressure, propelling RCB to 61 for 1 at the end of the powerplay. It was a number that made a mockery of the early wicket.
For much of this season, Padikkal has been RCB’s chief enforcer at the top, especially after Phil Salt’s injury left a sizeable void. Batting at a strike rate of 173 through the tournament, the young Karnataka left-hander was in full flow once again, taking the attack to Yuzvendra Chahal after the powerplay and depositing two towering sixes in the leg-spinner’s over — an over that bled 22 runs and left Chahal visibly frustrated.
Just when Padikkal appeared to be cruising towards yet another fifty, Brar conjured a moment of magic, dismissing the left-hander and proving, in the most emphatic terms, that match-ups can sometimes be gloriously overrated.
But even the end of a 76-run stand brought Punjab no real respite. With skipper Rajat Patidar sidelined through injury, RCB turned to Venkatesh Iyer at No. 4. Iyer, playing only his third innings of the season and last having batted for RCB on April 30, was understandably rusty. A quick spell in the nets on the eve of the match could only do so much. There were nervous moments — Chahal beating him on the outside edge in the 11th over — before Kohli strolled over for a quiet word. The message appeared simple: wait for the ball, hold your shape, trust the process.
Iyer, to his credit, kept attempting the reverse sweep regardless, which did not exactly scream conviction. Kohli took matters into his own hands, those magical wrists conjuring his third six of the day — a whipped length ball from Shashank Singh that disappeared into the stand. The senior man was shielding his partner, carrying the weight of the innings on his experienced shoulders.
Kohli brought up his fourth fifty of the season in the 12th over and, almost inevitably, crossed 500 runs for the season — a landmark he has made something of a habit in recent years.
VENKATESH IYER CUTS LOOSE
At the other end, Iyer was crawling along at 15 off 14, his reticence increasingly at odds with the situation. The switch flicked dramatically in the 13th over. He took on Brar with savage intent, launching the first two deliveries into the stands. Then Chahal felt his wrath in the 15th over — two more towering sixes — ensuring RCB never missed Patidar’s blade against spin.
It was a testament to the defending champions’ auction acumen. They had replaced like with like, and in Dharamsala, it paid off handsomely — because just as Iyer found his touch, Kohli fell for 59 in the 15th over. Yet there was no lull. Iyer plundered the next 35 of his fifty off a mere 14 deliveries, turning his attentions to the pacers, including a thoroughly roughed-up Ferguson. Tim David then made his cameo count, punishing Arshdeep in the 18th over with a towering maximum to push RCB past 200.
A score of 240 beckoned, but Omarzai’s composure in the penultimate over — sticking to his yorkers with cold precision — restricted Punjab to just 8 runs and brought RCB back to earth. David finished the innings in style with a six and a four before holing out at deep square leg off the final ball.
RCB posted 220, and the man of the moment was undeniably Venkatesh Iyer — unbeaten on 73 off 40 deliveries, laced with four sixes and eight boundaries. Every run felt like a release after weeks spent watching from the dugout.
It was a collective effort defined by three fifty-plus partnerships — precisely the kind of cohesion that Punjab Kings, on this day, simply could not match.
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