Delhi: Riding on a maiden IPL hundred from Prabhsimran Singh (103 off 65) and a superb bowling performance led by their spinners with Harpreet Brar (4/30) the stand out performer, Punjab Kings (PBKS) handed a 31-run defet to Delhi Capitals (DC) at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Saturday (May 13). Punjab scored 167/7 in theri 20 overs before restricting Delhi to just 136/8 despite the latter getting off to a flying start. Punjab’s win has eliminated Delhi out of the race to the Playoffs.

How crucial was the knock from the young PBKS opener can be gauged from the fact that the next highest score by a batter in the scorecard was from Sam Curran who scored 20 off 24 balls. Unlike the kind of innings he had played before, the 22-year-old initially took his time before unleasing the range of strokes which he had already shown glimpses of with his cameos in the past. His innings pretty much single-handedly took PBKS to a competitive total.

In response, Delhi were off to a splendid start with David Warner getting to his half-century off just 23 balls. However, wickets started to fall as soon spinners were introduced into the attack. Phil Salt was the first one to depart with Harpreet Brart gettin his wicket. In the very next over Rahul Chahar got the wicket of Mitchell Marsh. From there, PBKS did not need any second invitation to exert pressure as they reduced DC from 69/0 to 88/6.

Apart from Brar, Chahar too was impressive with the ball as he finished with figures of 2/16. Nathan Ellis was the other wicket-taker for PBKS and scalped 2 wickets for 26 runs in his 4 overs. The win by a healthy was exactly what Punjab needed but they need to continue the same in their remaining two matches in order to have a chance to get through to the final four.

DC with 8 points from 12 matches can now reach a maximum of 12 points which won’t be sufficient for them to get to the business end of the tourament. They will come out to play for pride in their remaining two games.