The Punjab Kings – boosted by a magnificent century from Jonny Bairstow – gave a truly royal command performance when they established a T20 world record by beating the Kolkata Knight Riders by eight wickets in their Tata IPL match at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Friday night.
In front of a rapt crowd of 55 767, and needing 262 for victory, Punjab not only reached their target to establish the highest successful run chase in T20 history, but achieved it in 18.3 overs, with nine balls to spare. Their achievement outshone South Africa’s 259 against the West Indies at Centurion in 2023.
When Punjab began their innings, they needed 13.1 runs an over for victory, an intimidating task. And yet they not only maintained that run-rate throughout their innings, but increasingly improved on it.
In a match that must've made bowlers despair, a total of 42 sixes were hit, another world record, with KKR notching 18 and Punjab 24. That the record was broken had a lot to do with an extraordinary innings from Shashank Singh who smashed eight maximums in his unbeaten 68 in just 28 balls as he and Bairstow exchanged blows as their team raced to victory. Bairstow himself cleared the ropes nine times, as well as hitting eight fours, in his unbeaten 108 in 48 balls.
Amazingly, neither of those two batters was responsible for the highest strike rate in the Punjab innings. That honour went to Prabhsimran Singh who clouted four fours and five sixes in his 20-ball 54 that only ended when he was brilliantly run out by Sunil Narine to put an end to his opening partnership with Bairstow of 93 in 36 balls.
In fact, in any other match, Narine would have been lauded as player of the match. He not only struck a belligerent 71 off 32 balls, but bowled superbly to claim 1-24 off his four overs as well as effecting a brilliant run-out. But this was no ordinary match.
HIGHEST TOTAL AT EDEN GARDENS
Earlier, hardly anyone would have considered that KKR would be on the losing side when they compiled 261 for six, the highest total ever scored in the IPL at Eden Gardens and the first above 200 in this campaign.
Put in to bat by Punjab, openers Phil Salt (75 off 37 balls) and Narine (71 off 32) smashed 138 for the opening wicket in just 63 balls, a one-way flow of runs that was partly due to some belligerent batting, but was equally the responsibility of the Punjab bowlers and fielders who were both poor. The bowlers bowled too wide, too short and too often in the “slot”; the fielders dropped Narine once and Salt twice – all three chances should have been taken by Arshdeep Singh, Sam Curran and Kagiso Rabada respectively.
Rabada, like many of the bowlers in this match, had an outing to forget, going for 43 off his first two overs that were devoid of the intensity that we normally expect from him. In the end, he went for 52 runs in three overs. Skipper Curran was no better, conceding 60 runs in his four overs in return for the wicket of Salt, his worst analysis in the IPL.
The remaining KKR batters ensured that the momentum of the innings rarely dropped after the demise of the openers, with Venkatesh Iyer (39 off 23 balls), Andre Russell (24 off 12) and Shreyas Iyer (28 off 10) all striking at close to 200 per cent. Shreyas Iyer may have played the best shot in the innings, a languid clip off his legs to a “slot” delivery from Curran that went 10 rows back over the midwicket boundary.
But it was the openers who set the tone and the pace of the innings. Narine, who has already struck a century in this year’s tournament, flamboyantly drove his first ball from Curran over extra-cover for four to reveal the KKR batter’s intentions. He continued his assault in the second over, pulling Singh for a huge six, and the partnership went from there.
The pair reached 76 without loss at the end of the power play – a total that was remarkably bested by Punjab who reached a barely believable 93 for one in that time – and went on at a similar helter-skelter pace after that. The pitch was a little slower and lower than usual, a factor that Punjab didn’t account for as the KKR batters hit everything loose for boundaries. Narine’s 71 came in a lightning 32 balls and included nine fours and four sixes.
It was a tough day for the Punjab bowlers with legspinner Rahul Chahar emerging with the most credit, taking 1-33 (the scalp of Narine) in his four overs.
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS: Phil Salt (wk), Sunil Narine, Angrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (capt), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Dushmantha Chameera, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana
PUNJAB KINGS: Jitesh Sharma (wk), Jonny Bairstow, Rilee Rossouw, Sam Curran (capt), Shashank Singh, Ashutosh Sharma, Harpreet Brar, Harshal Patel, Kagiso Rabada, Arshdeep Singh, Rahul Chahar