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MOHALI, India (AP) — Punjab Kings successfully defended the lowest total in the history of Indian Premier League and bowled out defending champion Kolkata Knight Riders for 95 on Tuesday.
Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal ignited a sensational Kolkata collapse with 4-28 for Punjab’s 16-run win after the home team got dismissed for 111 in 15.3 overs.
Punjab broke into the top four with eight points from six matches while defending champion Kolkata is sixth after four defeats and three wins.
Kolkata crumbles against Chahal
Kolkata had a bumpy start to its chase when Sunil Narine and Quinton de Kock both fell cheaply against fast bowlers Marco Jansen and Xavier Bartlett, playing his first IPL game for Punjab.
But impact player Angkrish Raghuvanshi (37) and captain Ajinkya Rahane showed plenty of intent as Kolkata cruised to 62-2 before Chahal turned the game on its head in the eighth over.
Rahane could have overturned the on-field umpire’s lbw decision against him as the replays suggested the ball had hit the front pad outside the line of offstump but didn’t go for a TV referral and that ignited a sensational Kolkata collapse.
“I’ll take the blame,” Rahane said. “I played the wrong shot … but it started from there. We batted really badly as a batting unit. Too many things going through my head, very disappointed.”
Chahal had been struggling this season with only two wickets in the previous five games. He also had to pass a fitness test ahead of Tuesday’s game.
Kolkata slid further when Chahal went on to dismiss top-scorer Raghuvanshi, who was brilliantly snapped by Bartlett at point and then Glenn Maxwell got the key wicket of Venkatesh Iyer when he had the left-hander lbw while bowling around the wicket.
Kolkata slumped to 76-7 when Chahal first outfoxed Rinku Singh with a slower ball and had the batter stumped and Ramandeep Singh couldn’t resist to play a ramp shot of a low Chahal full toss but got caught at leg-slip.
Jansen (3-17) and Arshdeep Singh (1-11) then mopped up the tail quickly despite Andre Russell (17) showing a brief spark and smashing two sixes and a boundary.
Punjab folds for 111
Harshit Rana’s (3-25) triple strike inside the power play had Punjab reeling at 54-4 that included a second-ball duck from captain Shreyas Iyer against his former franchise.
Iyer, who had captained Kolkata to the title last year, but was not retained for this season, was brilliantly snapped by diving Ramandeep Singh at deep point.
Josh Inglis’ IPL debut knock was short lived as the Australian wicketkeeper-batter was clean bowled by Varun Chakravarthy (2-21) when he went for an over ambitious slog sweep against the spinner in the power play.
Glenn Maxwell’s (7) below-par season continued when he got dismissed for his fourth single digit score in six games and Narine (2-25) made it 80-7 when impact player Suryansh Shedge edged the spinner to wicketkeeper de Kock.
Shashank Singh (18) and No. 10 Bartlett (11) made sure Punjab cross the 100-run mark before Bartlett got run-out.
“At the halfway mark there weren’t too many people around the world who would have defended that,” Punjab’s coach Ricky Ponting of Australia said. “That might just be about the best win I’ve ever had as coach.”
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AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
